Corruptio Optimi Pessima
by McWhite
Summary: What if Bellatrix had been a little more imaginative when she tortured Hermione in seventh year? If she tried out a new spell she heard about from Voldemort, things might have turned out different for everyone. As Hermione tries to cope with the changes forced upon her, what happens to Ron? How would everyone's lives have played out with such a change?
1. Chapter 1

_Hi again :) So this story was supposed to be a one shot, but it grew while I was writing it. I finished it at around 45 thousand words. Now while I realise that there are one shots much bigger than this, I personally find it bothersome to read chapters longer than 10k words, so in light of this, I cut the "one shot" down in several chapters. They will be around 3000-5000 words each (with some exceptions due to the splitting), 11-12 in total (I'm not sure about the last one yet)._

 _I want to put them up here in quite quick succession, but I understand that some people prefer to read periodically. As a compromise between those two, I plan to put up one or two each day, if two then probably one earlier and one later in the day. I hope everyone is happy with that._

 _Having meant to be a one shot, I should mention this: Everything I don't describe in detail you can think of as being as close to the books as possible, considering the changes that happened before. The very first line in this chapter is taken from Deathly Hallows, just so we have a common starting point. I should also mention, for those missing her earlier in the story, while I named Daphne as a character, she only plays a role in the last third of the story. However, in that part, she is quite prominent, which is why I decided to put her up as a character in the overview. I rated this M due to the combat descriptions. I am not sure how soon combat descriptions demand the rating to go up, so this is for safety._

 _Lastly, I do, quite surprisingly I'm sure for everyone reading this, not own anything about Harry Potter._

 **Chapter 1**

 _"What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!"_

The Mudblood screamed, but Bellatrix Lestrange was too beside herself due to rage and not a little fear to even enjoy torturing her. Here they were, they had finally caught Potter and his friends and had just been about to call their Lord, when she saw a sword with them that should have been in her vault. One of her Lord's precious items was hidden there. What if they found it? If they had taken it? What if they even destroyed it?

"Tell me, TELL ME! CRUCIO! How did you get into my vault?"

The Mudblood screamed even more, if that was possible. Bellatrix suddenly became mindful that snapping her mind would not give her any answers. She lifted the curse and thought. How could she get the Mudblood to talk. A light went on in the back of her head. The Dark Lord just recently had taught her a spell and said to test it on a suitable target. If it worked, she would get all the answers she wanted. If not... well she still had the red head, Bellatrix mused.

"Why did you stop, Bella?" Cissy asked her.

"Be silent. I have a better idea how to get her to talk. If this works, we can get all the answers we need."

"What is it?" her sister's husband Lucius asked impatiently.

"I won't tell. We don't want the little Mudblood to fake the effects now, do we?" Bellatrix said sweetly, while brandishing her wand.

The Mudblood was still to weakened to move away from the wand pointed at her. "Please, no more. It's a fake, a fake." she screamed.

"A fake? Well we will know the truth in now time." Bellatrix tried to remember the correct sequence of words for the incantation. Once she had it, she adjusted her aim and spoke " _Vis tibi servienda est!"_ Bella watched carefully as a black beam with a golden aura left her wand and impacted into the Mudblood's torso, engulfing her for a few seconds in an eerie dark golden aura, while she looked back with fear in her eyes. Then the visual effect ceased and the Mudblood seemed to calm down and be disoriented. So far it made sense. If everything worked, this spell should enslave her to the person with the strongest magical aura in close proximity. According to the Dark Lord, in any group of Death Eaters, that should be Bellatrix herself.

Bellatrix watched the Mudblood carefully, as she seemed to look around and gather her bearings for a couple of tens of seconds, still lying on a floor. Finally she moved. She was still obviously labouring under the after effects of Bellatrix' Crucio, but did her best to sit herself up. She seemed to once more gather her bearings, and Bellatrix aimed her wand again, in case the spell hadn't worked. Then the Mudblood looked up to Bellatrix and with one motion went from sitting to kneeling in front of her head bowed.

"Mistress."

Bellatrix felt excitement that the spell had worked. "See that, Draco." Bellatrix clapped her hands in joy. "If you are a good boy, I will give her to you, then you can stop whining that the Mudblood made your life oh so hard."

She turned back to the Mudblood. "Are you my slave, Mudblood, answer me truthfully?"

"Yes, Mistress, I am." The Mudblood said, sadness evident in her voice.

"You are not happy about that, Mudblood?"

"No Mistress, but it does not matter." She answered.

That was coherent with the effects the spell should have had. She should still be the same person, with the same likes and dislikes, only that in their core she should see and know herself as a slave. That made it even sweeter. It wasn't like the Imperio, where the victim obeyed because you gave them a good feeling. The Mudblood knew exactly what was going on, she just didn't have a choice.

"You will obey any order I give you?"

"Yes Mistress, anything you wish." The Mudblood said.

"And if I don't give you orders?" Bellatrix asked. "Look up at me, I want to see your face."

The Mudblood's head snapped up, her eyes angry and sad, but resigned. "I would still be your slave, Mistress. I would do whatever serves you best, even without orders." She answered.

Bellatrix looked to the others in the room triumphantly.

"I don't believe her. What kind of spell was that anyway?" Lucius just said.

Bellatrix got angry. Idiot. But if he wanted proof, he could have it. Bellatrix was sure of her success. "Fine, I'll give you proof, Lucy."

"Mudblood, here take my knife and finish carving what you are into your arm. And not a scream, slave."

The Mudblood looked to her arm where Bellatrix had started with the letters M-U-D-B-L. If she carved the other three letters, certainly even Lucius would believe that the Mudblood was theirs to control.

"As you command, Mistress." She said somewhat dully. Bellatrix gave her the knife, gripping her wand more tightly in case the Mudblood would attack, but not pointing it at her. She didn't want to make her doubt obvious to Lucius after all.

The Mudblood took the knife and held her Arm in front of her. She took set the knife down on her skin and started slowly cutting. Bellatrix watched in awe, as the Mudblood slowly carved the humiliating word into her own skin. She hissed in pain several times and Bellatrix could see a tear running down her face, but she never screamed.

When she was finally done, she held her arm so that Bellatrix could see. "Is this to your satisfaction, Mistress?"

"Yes, slave, very good. Give me back the knife."

"Yes, Mistress." She handed her back the knife.

Bellatrix turned to Lucius. "Happy now, Lucy?"

Lucius had an astonished look on his face, but didn't seem to find the words. Bellatrix just smirked at him before turning back to her new slave.

"Would you ever lie to me if I don't order you to tell the truth?"

"No, Mistress, I could never lie to you." She answered dutifully.

"Great." Bellatrix said sweetly. "Then tell me about the sword."

But before the Mudblood could start talking, there was a loud crack downstairs. "What was that? Stop, slave, not a sound."

Her slave shut her mouth again. Bellatrix, and everyone else in the room, listened intently. There was a second crack. Bellatrix turned to Wormtail.

"Wormtail, go see what happened down there."

Wormtail scurried to the door and was just out of the door, when another crack sounded from below.

There were several sounds heard from below, and then silence. The waited for another minute or two but nothing was heard. As nothing seemed to have happened, there was no reason to wait for Wormtail's return and report. Even he would manage to silence a couple of unwanded and otherwise unarmed prisoners, after all. Bellatrix calmed down again and turned to her slave.

"So, now back to you, Mudblood."

But before anything could be said, the door burst open and the red head Weasley stormed in with a wand pointed at them. "NOOOOOOOO! Leave her alone!" Harry Potter moved in behind him. Bellatrix pointed her wand at Weasley but was in a disadvantage due to the surprise and was disarmed. To add insult to injury, Potter caught her wand and proceeded to stun Lucius. Bellatrix shook her head, really, how stupid could one man be. She dove out of the way, towards the table with the two wands they had taken from Potters friends. She took one for herself and was just about to give her slave back hers when she head Greyback roar "Stupify!", hitting the Mudblood in the back, who had just started to rise from her position at the floor.

The idiot still didn't believe that her spell worked. Took one of their own fighters. Possibly their greatest surprise. But she would have to work with it now. Instead of wasting time enervating her slave, she dove back towards the spot where she crumbled on the floor. She picked the Mudblood up and put the knife to her throat.

"STOP OR SHE IS DEAD!"

The fighting in the room stopped near instantly.

"Lay down your wands." Bellatrix ordered.

Potter and Weasley hesitated. Bella, for effect, pushed the knife a little deeper in her slave's skin. Of course, she didn't plan to kill her, there was so much information to be gained, but they wouldn't know that. Obviously they also didn't know about their friend's enslavement, or they might have decided differently. They let the wands drop to the floor.

"Gather them up." Bellatrix ordered the other dead eaters, while she pointed her wand at Potter and Weasley.

"Incarcerus!"

In a few seconds, the two were bound, still standing in tight rope both around their torso and arms and around their legs. Bellatrix smiled. She couldn't harm Potter, he was for the Dark Lord, but she could harm Weasley. And she knew exactly what she would do.

"She pointed her wand at her slaves head."

"NO!" Weasley and Potter shouted.

Bellatrix looked back to them. "Oh, don't worry, I'm just gonna wake her up quickly. Enervate."

The Mudblood stirred in her arms. She looked around confusedly for few seconds and then turned around to her and dropped back on her knees.

"Hermione, what are you doing?" Weasley asked.

The Mudblood looked up to Bellatrix. "Go ahead, answer him." She turned around. "Mistress used a spell on me, I'm her slave now."

"What?" Weasley just asked stupidly.

Potter looked shocked, but then seemed to gather himself. "No, you have to fight it, Hermione."

"I'm sorry, Harry, there is nothing to fight. I hate being her slave, I just can't do anything. I'm a slave now, I can't go against my Master."

"Hermione, please, fight it."

Bellatrix silenced them with a small movement of her wand and smirked at them. "As nice as this reunion is, I don't have that kind of time." She went to the table and picked up the Mudblood's wand and went back to give it to her. "Here, slave."

She took it, looking up fearfully, probably foreseeing her next order. "Please, Mistress..."

"Silence, slave." She shut up immediately. Bellatrix looked to Potter and Weasley.

"Now no harm can come to you, Potter. But you, Weasley, are fair game. And I know just the right thing to do. And now, I want to see the despair in your eyes when one of your best friends kills you. I will even allow you to talk, plead with her if you want, but know that she can do nothing to stop herself from obeying. Every plea will just make this memory more and more horrifying to her."

"Slave, kill Weasley, you may speak to him if you want."

Her slave looked at her with pleading eyes for just a second, but then she rose from her position at her knees. "As you order, Mistress."

She turned around and pointed her wand at Weasley. "Hermione, please fight it. I know you can win."

"No, Ron." The Mudblood answered sadly. "This is not about fighting. I know exactly who I am and who you and they are. My mind is clear, it's not like the imperio. But I have to obey her, no matter how much I don't want to. I'm a slave, I have to obey my Master and do what's best for him, no matter my own wants or needs."

This was the second time the Mudblood had called Bellatrix her master rather than mistress, Bellatrix mused. Maybe she would have some fun punishing her for that later. After all, she was quite clearly a woman.

"Please, Hermione, please don't do it, you don't have to obey her, you're not a slave!"

"I'm sorry Ron, I love you." The Mudblood just answered, her wand still pointed at Weasley.

Suddenly, she spun her wand around, pointing at Potter. "Portus!" And Potter just vanished.

Bellatrix screamed "Slave, what the hell did you do?"

But the Mudblood turned on the spot and apparated away. Bellatrix blinked a few times. What the hell had just happened?

* * *

 _If you read this far, I hope you enjoyed the read. I'll put the second one up this evening. Until then._


	2. Chapter 2

_Welcome back :) Harry Potter? Wait... let me see... nope, still not mine._

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

Hermione watched the beam of black and gold travel towards her and everything seemed to be in slow motion. She wanted desperately to move away, but she couldn't. She was still shivering with the after effects of the cruciatus curse. Lestrange's face seemed to be a mix of awe and excitement as she watched the spell travel towards Hermione. What would it do to her? Hermione didn't want to know. Desperate, she tried to will her body to turn around, but the spell had been fired from too close and she was too weak to evade it.

After what seemed like an eternity, the spell impacted, and Hermione noticed with horror that she was engulfed in a golden-ish glow. What would happen? It didn't hurt. In fact, she didn't feel anything, neither from the impact, nor from the aura surrounding her now. Did the spell fail?

But then suddenly, it happened. It was the strangest feeling Hermione had ever had. As if her whole... being was just... shifted. Right in front of her. Hermione tried to fight the spell, but without knowing what it would do, that was incredibly hard. First she tried to desperately hold on to her memories, but they seemed to remain untouched by the spell. Then she tried to guard her personality but that also didn't seem to be the spells target. Hermione tried to guard everything about her against the shift she still felt, but the spell didn't seem to try and take anything away.

And then, it dawned on Hermione. She was a slave. She just suddenly knew. She tried to fight it, but she found that she couldn't. It wasn't an emotion, or an idea. It was a fact. Hermione Granger was now a slave. She tried to tell herself that it was because of the spell, but somehow, it didn't matter. Of course it was because of the spell, after all Hermione was a strong willed person and would never become a slave of her own volition. But the spell had made her into a slave, and so she was one now. Hermione tried other alleys to contradict the fact that she was a slave, but she just couldn't. She knew she was a slave now. At the core of her very existence, that was who she was.

And as a slave she had to serve and obey her Master. Her Master... Harry Potter? Hermione was confused for a moment, but it was right there. As certain as she knew that she was a slave, she also knew that her Master was Harry James Potter. She noticed that the glow around her had started to weaken. Had that been everything? No changes in her personality, no memory loss, nothing?

Hermione was confused. Ok, she was Master Harry's slave, but that didn't seem too powerful a notion to her, like it could be easily overcome. In order to try, she started thinking about resisting, and found surprisingly that she could do that. Could she really resist Master Harry? But then it came to her. She couldn't. She was Master Harry's slave, so she could never resist him. Ok, but Master Harry wouldn't order her around anyway. Hermione wondered if everything would just go back to normal then, once they got out of here. But again the answer just seemed to come to her. No. Even if Master Harry would never give her an order, she was still his slave. As a slave, she had to always do what was best for him, disregarding her own wants and needs.

While Hermione investigated her new role in life, the glow around her subsided further. The internal investigation went on only seconds, though to Hermione again it seemed like an eternity. When the glow was fully gone, Hermione no longer thought that the spell had been weak. She knew it was incredibly strong. She knew that she would be her Master's slave until the end of her days. She was her Master's property. She would never betray him (not that she would have before she had become Master's slave). All that she would ever do or say again, would ultimately be for Master. Hermione hated that she was a slave, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. What she hated, disliked, liked or loved didn't matter, nor did what she wanted or needed, only what Master wanted or needed mattered. Only what he loved, liked, disliked or hated.

At the same time as she slowly came back to reality, she felt lucky that she was Master Harry's slave, rather than Lestrange's, as the crazy woman certainly had planned. Wait... Master Harry was in danger. His slave had to do something. But what? Hermione continued to try and think, as the fog around her mind, both from the pain of the cruciatus and from the shift in her being, slowly lifted. No doubt Lestrange thought that Hermione was her slave instead of Master Harry's. Not being fully focused yet, Hermione found herself briefly trying to think of her Master in another term. She tried to summon memories of her friendship with Master. No, she meant her friendship with Master. Master Harry. It was quite strange. She clearly remembered herself calling her Master by his name hundreds of times, but now she couldn't bring herself to think of him without the title attached.

No, wait, she needed to focus. She could figure out how to properly behave around Master later. Now she needed to first save him. Lestrange thought that Hermione was her slave. Hermione had to use that. She was sure her Master would come up with something. After all he always did. And he had Ron to help. Ron... what would he say about this? 'No, focus. Ron is not important. I have to help Master.' Hermione hated herself for thinking that, but she knew in her very core that it was true. Master Harry would always come first.

Okay, so she would use the fact that Lestrange thought Hermione was her slave. Maybe she could pretend to be Lestrange's slave for a while, until either Master Harry and Ron came up with something, or until she found a way to save Master on her own. But how to do that? She was after all new to being a slave. Could she just pretend that Lestrange was Master Harry? Maybe think, what would she do if Lestrange was Master Harry?

She looked around a bit more, finally gaining back all her mental focus, but she couldn't come up with anything better. She started trying to sit up, and noticed Lestrange and everyone else watch her carefully. Okay, now was as good a time to try out her idea as any. What would she do if it was Master Harry standing above her rather than Lestrange.

Kneel, came the answer. She was after all a slave. If her Master stood over her like this, she would kneel so that's what she would do now. She still had shivers due to the cruciatus but she managed to slowly sit up. She gathered her breath, looking around once more, then she looked to Lestrange. 'She is Master Harry' Hermione thought. Then she made a swift motion that felt familiar to her, even though she couldn't remember ever making it before, and she was on her knees in front of Lestrange, her head bowed. She should probably also talk, maybe just address her the way I would Master. No wait, not Master, but...

"Mistress." Hermione cringed internally as she acknowledged someone other than Master with such a title, but it had to be done.

She couldn't see Lestrange's face, but she heard her clap in excitement while she said "See that, Draco. If you are a good boy, I will give her to you, then you can stop whining that the Mudblood made your life oh so hard."

Hermione prayed to god and to magic that she would find a way to save Master before that.

"Are you my slave, Mudblood, answer me truthfully?" Came Lestrange's voice.

Hermione thought what she would answer if this was Master Harry. Of course, she could never lie, so she had to say the truth. She was Master's slave. It took her more attention to adjust her answers to the situation than she would have liked, but she got it right in time. "Yes, Mistress, I am."

"You are not happy about that, Mudblood?"

Again, she would tell Master the truth, so... "No Mistress, but it does not matter."

"You will obey any order I give you?"

That was actually an interesting question to Hermione. She tried to think of anything that she wouldn't do if Master ordered it. Anything at all. The answer she came up with, while predictable was still somewhat shocking to her. "Yes Mistress, anything you wish."

"And if I don't give you orders?" Lestrange asked. "Look up at me, I want to see your face."

Hermione was too concentrated to adjust her answers. She needed some more emotion in her eyes if she wanted to fool Lestrange while looking at her. She focused on how she felt about being a slave. She felt sad, angry, resigned. That was probably good enough, so she obeyed and forced herself to look up to Lestrange while answering "I would still be your slave, Mistress. I would do whatever serves you best, even without orders."

After a few seconds of silence, where Lestrange looked away from her, Lucius Malfoy interjected "I don't believe her. What kind of spell was that anyway?"

Hermione tried to keep calm. 'Please let me not be found out', she thought. After what seemed like minutes, Lestrange finally said "Fine, I'll give you proof, Lucy."

"Mudblood, here take my knife and finish carving what you are into your arm. And not a scream, slave."

Hermione remembered what happened shortly before her enslavement, and looked at her arm to find the letters M-U-D-B-L carved into it. She really didn't want to do this. But she had to. Master was more important than her well-being or pride. She had to do it, so she could get a chance to save Master.

"As you command, Mistress." Hermione took the knife. She was afraid. Could she really do it? She concentrated on saving Master. 'To be able to save Master, I have to carve the letters in my arm without screaming.' she thought.

That was all it took. Nearly on its own, her hand set down the knife on her arm, where the first O should appear and with just a little more pressure, it cut through her skin. Hermione felt slightly detached. She hissed in pain, but continued carving. Master needed her to do this. Master certainly wouldn't want her to do this, but he needed her to do this. And so Hermione kept going, managing not to scream the entire time, even though doing it herself was not much less torturous than when Lestrange had started it before. Finally, with a last cut, she was done. She breathed out deeply, then showed her arm to Lestrange. "Is this to your satisfaction, Mistress?" Pretending she was Master became a little easier.

"Yes, slave, very good. Give me back the knife."

"Yes, Mistress." She handed her back the knife. She was slightly reluctant letting go of the weapon, but a knife wouldn't really help her. Of course, she could try and kill Lestrange, but her Master would still be imprisoned, so that wouldn't help her.

Lestrange turned away from her again. "Happy now, Lucy?"

Hermione couldn't see Lucius Malfoy, but from the lack of an answer assumed he was speechless. Lestrange turned back to her.

"Would you ever lie to me if I don't order you to tell the truth?"

"No, Mistress, I could never lie to you." Hermione answered, adding in her thoughts 'at least not, if you were my real Master.'.

"Great." Bellatrix said sweetly. "Then tell me about the sword."

Hermione knew this was coming and she just wanted to affirm that the sword was just a copy, as she had claimed before her enslavement, when there was a loud crack downstairs. "What was that? Stop, slave, not a sound." Lestrange snapped.

Hermione closed her mouth again. Inside, she was cheering. Certainly that crack had something to do with Master and Ron. But she would have to wait and see what had happened.

"Wormtail, go see what happened down there." Lestrange ordered when there was a second crack.

The man hurriedly left the room, accompanied by a third crack. Hermione cheered her Master and Ron on.

There were several sounds heard from below, and then silence. The waited for another minute or two but nothing was heard. Hermione knew that Pettigrew was not a match for Ron and her Master and so she interpreted the silence as sign of their victory. It seemed Lestrange interpreted it differently, because she calmed down and turned back to Hermione.

"So, now back to you, Mudblood."

But again they were interrupted when someone Hermione couldn't see ran into the room. "NOOOOOOOO! Leave her alone!" she heard Ron's voice, and then a second pair of feet running into the room. That must be Master. She saw a disarming curse impact with Lestrange, who lost her wand, and then a moment later, she saw Lucius Malfoy fall to the ground, hit by a stunner. Lestrange dove out of the way, towards the table with Ron's and Hermione's wand. Hermione needed to act now to help Master. She started getting up, but she was in a vulnerable position. Too vulnerable. She heard a roar in her back, probably Greyback "Stupify!". Her world became black.

...

When Hermione came to again she was held up by Lestrange. She remembered the fight and looked around to see what happened. Master and Ron were still alive, but they were bound and Hermione had now weapon. There were too many of them to just try an make a break for it and hope apparition would work. Hermione decided that she had to go back to pretending to be Lestrange's slave for now. She turned around to face Lestrange, and dropped back to her knees in front of her.

"Hermione, what are you doing?" She cringed at Ron's voice. She hated shocking him like this, but it needed to be done.

She didn't really want to answer his question, so she looked up to Lestrange in the hope that she would forbid her from talking, but she had no such luck. "Go ahead, answer him."

Hermione once more cringed internally, but turned around. "Mistress used a spell on me, I'm her slave now."

"What?" Ron asked. But at the moment he stopped mattering to Hermione. She just looked to her Master who had a look of utter shock on his face. Hermione nearly caved under it, she nearly admitted to really being his slave, but she knew she had to hold out, for her Master's sake.

Finally her Master managed to shake off his shock. "No, you have to fight it, Hermione."

"I'm sorry," Hermione concentrated all her mind on the next word, "Harry, there is nothing to fight. I hate being her slave, I just can't do anything. I'm a slave now, I can't go against my Master." No. Mistress. Arrgh. Hopefully no one noticed. Hermione held her breath.

"Hermione, please, fight it." Her Master said again, but Hermione didn't know what to answer anymore.

She saw Ron's mouth move but no sound came out. They had been silenced. Hermione looked back to Lestrange, to see her wand pointing at Ron and Master. "As nice as this reunion is, I don't have that kind of time." She again went to the table on which Hermione's wand still rested. She came back and gave it to her. "Here, slave."

Hermione took it happily. Her goal of saving them was now nearly reached. But she cautioned herself. Getting her wand could mean only one thing. Lestrange wanted her to in some way at least harm Ron or Master. Probably Ron, because Lestrange had said before that Master was to be kept for Voldemort. She needed to look fearfully, which was not very hard in this particular situation. Maybe a little begging would help bring the point across. "Please, Mistress..."

"Silence, slave." Hermione silenced herself, while thinking what to do. She didn't like the idea of harming Ron. It turned her stomach around to know that she would do it in a heart beat if it meant she could save Master, but she also knew that it probably didn't need to come to that now. In fact, the safest thing to do was most likely to have the very first spell she spoke somehow save Master.

Meanwhile, Lestrange seemed to explain what Hermione had already foreseen. "Now no harm can come to you, Potter. But you, Weasley, are fair game. And I know just the right thing to do. And now, I want to see the despair in your eyes when one of your best friends kills you. I will even allow you to talk, plead with her if you want, but know that she can do nothing to stop herself from obeying. Every plea will just make this memory more and more horrifying to her."

"Slave, kill Weasley, you may speak to him if you want."

Hermione looked up to Lestrange again, trying to seem pleading, while she continued to think what she could do to save all three of them. She rose and answered "As you order, Mistress."

A portkey would be ideal. Maybe she could transform Master's clothes to portkey him away. But Master and Ron stood to far apart. To make a point, she turned around and pointed her wand at Ron. "Hermione, please fight it. I know you can win."

Hermione knew she needed to either cast a spell or answer. She wanted to think some more, so she decided to go for an answer. "No, Ron. This is not about fighting. I know exactly who I am and who you and they are. My mind is clear, it's not like the imperio. But I have to obey her, no matter how much I don't want to. I'm a slave, I have to obey my Master and do what's best for him, no matter my own wants or needs." Dammit! Mistress. She was getting sloppy, and the closeness of her true Master made it hard not to acknowledge him. She needed to end it. Think, think. She could easily save Master and herself. Transform Master's clothes into a portkey and then apparate away herself. But what about Ron? How could she save all three? If she told Master to grab Ron? But that was too risky and would put her Master in unnecessary danger. She could try and grab Ron for side-along apparition, once Master was portkeyed to safety. But that was risky as well. She was still weakened by the torture and a portkey that was strong enough to break through some of the wards Malfoy Manor certainly had, would take a lot out of her. Worst case scenario she ended up splinching them both.

And then a horrible truth dawned on her. She would leave Ron behind. She felt like crying and she felt tears well up in her eyes. 'No, NO! There must be a way.' she thought frantically. But she knew in her heart of hearts that it was the only decision. She was her Master's slave her Master's needs had to come first. Ron might be helpful in the future, but, and Hermione hated herself for thinking it, he could also be a liability again. He had been before. He had betrayed her Master. From Hermione's viewpoint as her Master's slave there was no decision to make. It was too great a risk and too little to gain for her Master. Her Master wouldn't even have to live with leaving Ron behind, that was her decision. Hermione knew it would haunt her forever, but that didn't matter. She felt a tear run down her cheek. She was Master's slave. Ron wasn't important enough to risk saving.

"Please, Hermione, please don't do it, you don't have to obey her, you're not a slave!"

Hermione had made her decision, her heart felt like breaking. At least she would be able to say one last thing to Ron.

"I'm sorry Ron, I love you."

With that she spun around and pointed her wand at Master. "Portus!" She waited just long enough to see her Master vanish in a swirl of colours.

Lestrange screamed at her "Slave, what the hell did you do?"

Hermione caught Ron's eyes one last time. She thought she saw a brief shimmer of understanding in them. As if Ron wanted to say 'I understand. Go.' Then she turned on the spot and apparated away.

* * *

Hermione reappeared next to the spot where she had sent her Master, and was relieved seeing him lying in the grass. She used her wand to cut open the ropes binding him and then said "Master, I am weak. You have to side-along apparate the both of us a few times so they can't follow us."

"Hermione, what about Ron? What happened in there? Wait... Master?"

"Master please, we can talk later. We have to be save first."

Her Master seemed to reluctantly accept. He grabbed her arm, and the next two minutes they made several apparitions with about 20-30 seconds of break in between. They ended up in a small forest. Her Master turned to her. "Now, Hermione, tell me what happened? And where is Ron? And why are you calling me Master?"

"Master, I transformed your clothes into a portkey in order to save you and then I apparated away. I couldn't take Ron, I was too weak, there was too much risk of splinching both of us. I'm sorry Master. As to why I am calling you Master, it's because that what you are."

"What do you mean?" her Master demanded.

"I'm your slave and you are my Master, Master."

"I don't follow? Didn't you just play slave to distract Bellatrix?"

Hermione thought about how to best explain the situation to her Master in the little time they had. "Well, Master, I pretended to be Lestrange's slave to distract her, so I could save my true Master. That would be you."

"I'm not your Master, Hermione. You are a free person."

Hermione cringed. How she would love that statement to be true. But she knew the truth, so she said "I'm sorry to contradict you, Master, but I'm not. I'm your property. Your slave."

Master looked at her, baffled for a moment, and he seemed to understand that it wasn't just a bad joke. "But how?"

"I don't quite know Master. Lestrange used a spell on me. The best I can surmise is that it enslaves the victim to somebody, but not necessarily to the caster. I felt myself become your slave almost instantly."

"Ok, I think this will take more time than we have right now. What do we do about Ron, we have to save him."

Hermione could not let her Master make any rushed decisions about what to do. "Master,..."

"Ok can you please just call me Harry?"

Hermione could of course not disobey something that was so close to an order. "Of course, Harry, thanks. But Harry, we are both weak. We can't go back now, they will capture us and kill us. We just need to hope nothing will happen to Ron."

"You can't be serious, Hermione. He is our best friend." Her Master looked at her incredulously.

Hermione became angry at that. This was the boy she had fallen in love with and her Master behaved like it was easy for her to just leave him. But she was speaking to her Master, so while she was seething inside she made sure to remain calm outside. "Harry, if you want me to, I will go back and try to get Ron out, but you cannot come."

"What? Why do you say that?" Harry asked heatedly.

"Because, Harry, we will get killed if we go." Hermione replied calmly.

That seemed to stop Master in his tracks. "Why would you go then?"

"Listen to me, Harry. I'm not saying 'I will go'. I'm saying if you want me to, order me to go and I will. I would never disobey your orders, Harry."

Master looked at her, truly shell-shocked. "Hermione, I would never send you to your death."

"I know, but why would you do it to yourself then?" Looking at Master's face, Hermione knew she had managed to convince him, at least for now.

Master looked at her for several long moments, then he sat back down into the grass. "So what now? Luna, Dean, Ollivander and Griphook were imprisoned in Malfoy Manor as well. Dobby brought them to Shell Cottage, where Bill and Fleur live. He wanted to come back immediately, but I guess something kept him away. Should we try to go there?"

Hermione took out her wands and set up a few weak anti-detection spells. Weak in the sense that they wouldn't hold very long but on the other hand required little power. "If you don't mind, let us stay here for a while, I think I need to try and explain my situation better. It would probably not be a good idea to have too many people around. I don't know all answers myself yet, but I will try my best, yes Harry?"

Master looked at her again, then nodded and let himself fall onto the ground.

"Well, the first thing you need to understand Harry, is that I am really your slave, no matter what I call you. I'm your slave and you are my Master and it will be that way for the rest of my life. Even if you don't order me to do things, you will still be the ultimate reason for everything I do."

Master looked at her with pity. "Can you really not fight it?"

"It's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't know what it is like himself. It's not about fighting. I'm still completely me. The only thing that changed is the fact that I'm your slave. To me it is a fact. Fighting it would be like fighting gravity. I can hate the idea of gravity and I can wish very much to be able to just float, but in the end, gravity won't stop existing."

Looking into her Master's eyes made Hermione feel a little soothed with the compassion she found. "What if I would just order you to be free again?"

"That would not really work. I would behave as if I was free on the surface, but I would spend my days waiting for you to come back to claim me as your slave again. That is another fact I know: I can never be free from you. Even if you were die I would continue to serve whoever you see fit to give me to. Or if you don't specify who, I would probably go serve whoever inherits the rest of your properties."

Her Master gulped. "I'm so sorry, Hermione."

"Me as well, Harry." Hermione said sadly. She really hated being a slave. But she shouldn't fool herself. In truth, she had been lucky. Whatever went wrong that made her Master's slave instead of Lestrange's, she really had to thank magic for that. She knew Harry would treat her well. In the end, probably once she got used to it, not a lot would change. She just hoped that they would be able to get Ron out, even if with her new situation it was very unlikely they would ever really get together. She had a Master now who she had to put before everything else, and Ron for all his good qualities had a jealousy problem. He wouldn't be able to handle that. In fact, she doubted anyone would be able to, even if they had their jealousy better in check than Ron. She knew she wouldn't be able to handle it. But still, she wanted to save Ron.

"Is it hard for you to talk about it, Hermione?"

"A little," Hermione answered her Master truthfully, "but you need to understand what is fact to me. So it's alright."

"We can take a break, whenever you need one."

"No it's fine, I want you to know everything."

And so she took the next half hour or so to explain the finer details of her enslavement to her Master. At least those she had already found out about. After the first five minutes her Master seemed to understand that getting angry wasn't gonna solve anything. She also managed to explain that there was no way out. Even if there was one, in form of a counter curse or something, Hermione would never take it. She could never deny her Master his property in such a way.

Her Master seemed resigned and accepting in the end, much like herself. "Hermione, I promise I will do whatever I can to make your situation as good for you as possible."

"I know that, Harry. We've been friends for years. Realistically, this might put more strain on you than it puts on me. I'm sorry for that."

"Don't you dare apologise for that, Hermione."

"As you wish, Harry." Hermione answered automatically. Both of them looked down embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," Harry said after a moment. "I guess I have to watch what I say better."

"We'll figure it out Harry, we always have." Hermione said soothingly to her best friend and Master.

"I know something. If I do something or tell you something, that makes this situation harder for you, I order you to tell me, alright?"

"Yes, Ma-Harry." Hermione caught herself.

"Can you think of anything else I could order you to make this easier for you? Then tell me as well, please."

Hermione thought for a moment. "Could you please either order me to think of you as Harry, or allow me to call you Master again? One and the other gets quite confusing."

"Of course, sorry, ummm... what would you prefer? I just ask, because you said I had to order you to think of me as Harry, but just allow you to call me Master?"

Hermione nodded. "I'm not sure. Thinking of you as my Master seems natural to me. I realise it's because of the spell. If you just gave me free choice I would probably call you Master. I would like to go back to the way it was before... this, but you would have to order me. I'm not sure if it would be as comfortable being 'forced', if you know what I mean?"

"We can just try it, if you don't like it we can always change it, can't we?"

Hermione smiled and nodded again.

"In that case I order you to address me and think of me as you did before Bellatrix cast the spell at you. Alright?"

"Thanks." Hermione smiled at her best friend. It felt a little weird. She still knew that he was her Master, but now, because of his order, she could no longer think of him as such.

Harry looked at her expectantly. "And?"

"I think I need to get used to this for a while, before making a decision, Harry."

"Ah, but it worked?"

"Yes, it did. Thanks."

"Do you think I could also tell you to behave like you used to?"

"How do you mean?" Hermione asked confusedly.

"Well, if I order you to behave like you used to, wouldn't you maybe stop following every order I give you?" Harry tried.

Hermione smiled at him sadly but shook her head. "I don't think that's how it works. I would probably just behave more like I used to when doing little things. Is there a lot of difference?"

"Too soon for me to tell, though I was kind of expecting a hug by now."

Hermione chuckled. She couldn't help herself. Her best friend was such an idiot. Not that he could by now have learned to initiate a hug on his own. She crawled a bit closer to Harry and when he opened his arms, she launched herself into them and hugged him tight. Her relieve that she could get them free, her fear for Ron, her desperation, sadness and anger at her own situation, she put everything into the hug, as she buried her face in Harry's shoulder. Why she hadn't thought of hugging him before, Hermione didn't know. And Harry just held her. He held her for a few long moments. And Hermione knew he always would. And then, she started to cry.

* * *

 _Hope you enjoyed it._


	3. Chapter 3

_Hi and welcome back for another chapter. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it. I Don't own Harry Potter._

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

Harry didn't know how long they had sat on the forest ground, just hugging each other, or how long Hermione cried. For Harry, it was too long. But then again, every second that Hermione cried was too long for Harry. He noticed when she became calmer and her sobs more regular, but still they didn't continue to talk.

Harry thought about Ron. They needed to save him, but Harry knew that Hermione had been right. Going now would be suicidal. And what was going on with Hermione disturbed him greatly. Did he really have a slave? And Hermione of all people? She had seemed so vulnerable before. So unlike her. Usually she was so strong. What would that mean for her in the long run? Would they be able to reverse it? The happenings of the last year had made Harry much more of a realist. Without knowing the curse, there was a good chance they wouldn't be able to reverse it in the foreseeable future, even if a counter curse or so existed.

Harry continued to think about this and other things, and he was so caught up in his musings that he never noticed when Hermione slowly went from crying to sleeping in his arms. When he finally noticed he gave a small chuckle and looked around. It was probably time to leave. By now, Harry was able to recognise most of the wards Hermione cast, if not cast them himself. The ones she put up wouldn't hold very long. He needed to get to Bill and Fleur, but now that some time had passed, he couldn't even remember where they lived, much less did he know how to get there. Well, only one way to do it then.

He put a lightening charm on Hermione and mindful of what he was about to do, he also put a silencing charm around her, so she wouldn't be woken by noise. Then he spoke in a near whisper. "Dobby?"

With the common crack, the House Elf appeared almost immediately.

"Master Harry Potter Sir, Dobby is so, so sorry. Dobby couldn't go back a third time, he wasn't strong enough. When Dobby finally managed..."

But Harry interrupted his little friend. "Shhh, shh... Dobby. I'm sure you did your best. Please don't wake up Hermione." Harry nodded to the girl in his arms.

Dobby's eyes got wide and he nodded.

"Can you bring us to where you brought the others?"

Dobby nodded and put his palm on Harry's knee. Harry nodded and with a crack, they disappeared.

Harry looked around and found himself standing on a shore in front of a little house. Looking to the door he saw Fleur walk towards him quickly, while Bill seemed to wait.

"'arry, 'arry, what 'appened?"

"Hermione is just sleeping, she is mostly fine I think. I don't want to wake her up. She went through a lot today."

Fleur silenced herself and simply nodded. Then she just mouthed one word. 'Ron?'

Harry shrugged his shoulders and looked sad. Fleur nodded again, this time more sedated and lead Harry towards the house.

"Lie 'er down in one of zee bedrooms. Zee second to zee left is for her and Luna. Zen come and tell us what 'appened." Fleur whispered to Harry when they were close enough for Bill to hear.

Harry nodded and went past Fleur. He saw Luna and Dean in the sitting room and nodded to them in acknowledgement, then went up the stairs that Fleur had pointed at. He found the door, went in and laid Hermione down on the bed with no stuff beside it, assuming the other one was Luna's. He remained for a moment, watching his best friend sleep, then he left the room and went down.

Bill waited at the bottom of the staircase. He didn't lead Harry into the sitting room, but outside through a back door, where Fleur was waiting on them. When the door was closed, he asked "What happened? Where is Ron?"

Harry shook his head sadly. "I don't know. Hermione managed to trick Bellatrix and got to her wand. She managed to get me away, but..." Harry thought for a moment. He didn't really want everyone to know that Hermione had made a deliberate choice to leave Ron behind. "...Ron was hit with a curse before she could get to him. We think he's still alive, but we don't know. I'm so sorry, Bill."

Bill looked pained, but nodded. "What do you want to do now?"

"We need to recover before we can try to rescue him."

Bill again looked pained, but this time shook his head. "No, I mean what do you want to do to get rid of You-Know-Who?"

"How do you mean?"

"Realistically, my brother is dead by now. You won't honour his memory by charging into Malfoy Manor for nothing. Not to mention, if he is alive, Dobby is the one with the best chances of recovering him and you know it. You wouldn't even be able to find Malfoy Manor again. So instead, tell me what you are going to do about You-Know-Who?" Harry wasn't quite sure if Bill was angry at him. It would be understandable, after all, but somehow, he didn't sound as if he was.

Harry deliberated for a moment what he should tell Bill. But then he remembered that Bill had worked for Gringotts. He hadn't talked with Hermione yet, but the way Bellatrix had reacted when she saw Gryffindor's sword, Harry was sure that she had a Horcrux in her vault. Maybe Bill could help.

"I think we need to break into Lestrange's vault in Gringotts."

Bill blinked a few times. "Pardon?"

"I think there is an item in Lestrange's vault that we were searching for since your wedding. We need it to kill Voldemort."

"What could be... wait... I don't think I want to know. But I believe you." Bill looked at him for a few moment. "I can help."

"We need to be fast. Bellatrix might be suspecting something."

"Tomorrow then. But we need a good plan. It won't be easy."

"Bill..." Fleur started. She was, naturally, worried.

"I'm sorry, Fleur, but I have to help them. For us, for my brother, for everyone." After a few seconds of sharing intent looks with her husband, Fleur nodded reluctantly.

"Thank you, Bill. Your family has done so much already. I'm really sorry for Ron. If there is anything I can do to get him back, I will."

"I know you will, Harry." Bill answered.

With that they went back inside. Harry spent an hour with Luna and Dean, recounting the light version of what had happened after Dobby had evacuated them. Then he excused himself and waited in Hermione's room for her to wake up.

* * *

As Hermione woke up, she found herself lying in a bed. An actual bed in an actual room. At first she panicked due to her new surroundings, the last thing she could remember was being in a forest with her... Harry. But as she looked around she saw Harry standing at the window to the left of her bed, his back towards her at the moment. He seemed to be in thought.

Hermione didn't want to disturb him, so she remained silent in bed. After a few minutes, he sighed and turned around. His face took on a surprised expression when he found Hermione awake. "Hi." he said.

"Hello." She answered. She tried to get up but Harry interrupted her.

"You were very exhausted, you should stay lying down for a bit longer."

Hermione was unsure what to do. She knew she should be on her knees in Harry's presence, but on the other hand what he had said sounded a lot like an order. She didn't like feeling this insecure about such a small thing. Finally she decided on asking. "Is that an order, Harry?"

Harry looked at her somewhat weirdly. "What is so important that you have to get up right this moment?"

Hermione knew she had to tell the truth, even though there was a high probability that it would freak Harry out. "I should be on my knees in your presence. It's my proper place."

Yep, Harry looked freaked out. However instead of going into a rage induced rant like she had half expected, his face took on a weird look. "Yes, it was an order." He deadpanned.

Hermione snorted. "Very well." and remained lying down.

Harry became serious again. "In fact, I don't want you to ever kneel or stand up or in anyway change your posture, just because you are in my presence."

Hermione nodded in acknowledgement. "Alright, Harry."

"How do you feel?"

"Not too bad, I guess. What happened?" Hermione remembered crying on Harry's shoulder and feeling quite exhausted.

"Nothing much," Harry replied, "you just slept in after a while. I put a silencing charm around you and called Dobby. He brought us here. This is Shell Cottage, where Bill and Fleur live. Luna and Dean are here as well, as are Ollivander and the Goblin Griphook. They were imprisoned in Malfoy Manor together with Ron and I, while..." Harry trailed off.

Hermione nodded but remained silent.

"Hermione, I told Bill that Ron was hit by a curse before you could get to him and we had to leave without him. I didn't want it to seem like you made a deliberate choice."

Hermione smiled. "Thank you, Harry. I would prefer not to tell them about... me. Not right now at least. Is that ok Harry?"

"Alright, though maybe Bill could help you. He is a curse breaker after all."

At that thought Hermione had to suppress shivers. She could never allow anyone to steal her from her... Harry. Not even on Harry's orders. Luckily Harry had accepted her earlier plea, so she had some time to come up with a solution for that problem. For now, she just shook her head. "No, we shouldn't spent time with this now. Voldemort is more important, we shouldn't spend time on other things. After the war, maybe, ok?"

Harry seemed reluctant, but nodded.

Hermione became aware of another problem. "If we want to keep it a secret, I..." she trailed of, for a moment caught up in how stupid she would sound asking for permission to do something they basically already agreed on. "... well, I kind of need your permission to, you know, behave in such a way they won't notice what I really am."

Harry looked at her oddly, then he sighed. "Of course. Sorry. Please do that. And again, please tell me anything I can do to make this easier for you."

Hermione swallowed. This made her uncomfortable, as it went against the basic concept she had of herself now. She was here to make Harry's life easier, not the other way around. However, it was an order, and so she had no choice but to obey, even if it made her uncomfortable. "Yes, Harry." Hermione mused briefly that she would feel better without having to follow Harry's last order and that she should maybe mention that, in accordance with that same order. But she decided that had not been what Harry had in mind when he had commanded it and so she dropped it. What was even more confusing was that on another level, where Hermione was still completely herself, she was happy about the order, even though it made her uncomfortable. Harry tried so hard to help her.

They remained silent for a while. Then Hermione asked "So, what will we do next?"

Harry seemed to think about how to phrase his words, but then he simply shrugged. "Tomorrow, we'll break into Gringotts."

Hermione blinked. She hadn't expected that. "What...", she started, before she managed to put one and one together. "You think because of Lestrange's reaction that there is a Horcrux in there?"

"It's the best lead for their location that we had for months." Harry said defensively.

Now thinking about it, Hermione had to agree. "Yes, you're right, sorry. How are we going to do it though?"

"Bill worked for Gringotts as a curse breaker, he will help us." Harry seemed somewhat guilty.

"Why does that bother you?" Hermione asked.

"I don't really want another Weasley in the line of fire."

"Well, even with Bill's help we need an actual plan, I think. Why does it have to be tomorrow?"

"After today, they might suspect something. If they move it, we could probably search for another year."

Hermione nodded. "That makes sense."

"If someone could impersonate Bella to trick the Goblins, that would be best, but how to do that?" Harry mused.

Hermione had an idea. "Harry, can you maybe leave me alone for just a few minutes or so?"

Harry seemed confused but nodded and made to leave the room. Just before he went through the door, Hermione remembered a potential problem. "Ummm... Harry?"

"Yeah?" Harry turned around to her.

"Could I please... get permission to get up for this?" Harry looked at her confusedly, so Hermione elaborated. "You ordered me to stay lying down, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Yes, do whatever you like." Harry seemed embarrassed that he had forgotten about that.

"Thanks, I'll call you back in." Hermione told him before he closed the door behind him.

Then Hermione took of her sweater and top and started meticulously investigate every inch of her clothing. While doing so she again mused over the strangeness of having to ask permission for such simple things as getting up. After two or three minutes she had found what she had hoped for. A black hair. At last luck was with them. Now she only had to hope for polyjuice potion, but in these times she would bet that Bill and Fleur had a reserve of that somewhere. She secured the hair and put her clothes back on before calling Harry back in.

"What was wrong, Hermione?" Harry asked confused as nothing had changed for him.

Hermione waited for a dramatic second, then triumphantly showed Harry the hair. "I looked through my clothes and found a hair from Lestrange. I'm sure Bill and Fleur have a stock of polyjuice, so this should solve our impersonation problem."

Harry face lit up. "That's great, Hermione. Seems we are lucky for once."

Hermione nodded.

"I'll go talk to Bill and Fleur. You should lay down again and rest a bit more." And before Hermione could answer, Harry was out of the door.

Hermione didn't really want to lie in bed again and rest. There were things to do. She wanted to help. And she knew Harry hadn't meant it as an order. But he still expressed a desire for her to rest and recover some more. She could ignore that though, couldn't she? After all it wasn't an order. But the more she thought about it, the more she realised that she couldn't ignore her master's wishes just because he hadn't phrased them as orders. Hermione fought with herself some more, but in the end she gave in. She just couldn't bring herself to ignore Harry's expressed wishes, no matter how much she wanted to. So she went back to her bad and laid down. She couldn't really sleep in again, but she had to admit the rest felt quite nice. So nice indeed, that when she realised that she could get back up if she wanted to, as Harry had only said to rest 'a bit' more, she decided to stay lying down for a bit longer.

* * *

After a while, Harry came back in. Hermione was still awake in her bed, musing about her situation, about how to best conduct their Gringotts break in and what to do about Ron.

"I'm surprised you took my advice, Hermione." Harry said amusedly.

"Didn't have a choice. You wanted me to rest and I just couldn't bring myself to ignore your wishes." Hermione said at which Harry's eyes widened in shock.

"Damn, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

"It's ok, it was actually one of your better ideas, Harry. So thanks." Hermione chuckled while Harry still seemed somewhat unhappy with himself.

"It's ok, really Harry. Once I laid down I enjoyed the rest very much, promise." That seemed to mollify Harry, who smiled.

"Well, glad I could help I guess."

"So what did come out of your talk to Bill and Fleur?"

"They do have polyjuice and will donate some for our mission. As only you, Bill and I are going, would it be ok if you impersonated Bellatrix? You are the only woman going."

Hermione simply nodded. She had wanted to suggest that anyway, and so she had made the that decision a while ago, though she wondered silently how much choice she would have left after Harry had asked her to do it. She shook off the thought, thinking of something else she had decided to ask while she had been resting and thinking.

"Harry, what were you thinking about when I woke up? You stood at the window over their just looking out, but you seemed to be in deep thought."

Harry looked at her with a pained expression. "I had a vision because Voldemort was quite emotional today. He visited Grindelwald in search of the elder wand."

"You mean from the Deathly Hallows?" Hermione asked.

"That one."

"But that's a fairy tail. It doesn't exist?" Hermione asked unsurely.

Harry shook his head. "He has it. It was Dumbledore's before and now he has it. He broke into Dumbledore's grave."

Hermione was shocked for a moment but then asked "How do you know it's really the elder wand?"

"I talked to Ollivander briefly. He basically confirmed its existence, including several points in history where it can be traced to."

The idea that a wand from a fairy tail did actually exist surprised Hermione to no end. It was strange, really, after she found out that magic existed with unicorns, dragons and everything, you would have thought she was above such surprise. But this was kind of different. This was a fairy tail even for the magical world. Hermione didn't at all like the sound of Voldemort with an invincible wand and now could perfectly understand Harry's pensive mood from before.

"What do we do about it?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing, I guess." Harry answered. "We'll just have to go with it. We don't have the time to learn all about the Hallows, even if we wanted to. For now we focus on the next thing, which is Gringotts and getting Ron back. Dobby has left for Malfoy Manor just before I came back up here. He should be back soon. Hopefully he will bring more good news."

Indeed, they only had to wait for a few more seconds until Dobby appeared with a loud crack.

When Dobby saw Harry he threw himself at his feet. "Dobby is so sorry, Harry Potter Sir. Dobby couldn't find Harry Potter's Weazhy, and then he had to leave because they nearly caught him. Dobby is a bad Elf." The little guy started sobbing.

Harry quickly kneeled down and pried the Elf from his legs. "Dobby, I'm sure you did your best." Harry looked closer at the Elf before saying "Dobby, you are exhausted. You should rest for a while. Can you try again later?"

"Dobby will try as often as it takes, Harry Potter Sir."

Harry smiled. "Thanks Dobby, that's all I can ask. Now go rest some."

With a nod and another crack, the Elf disappeared.

Harry's expression turned pained. "If he couldn't find him..." Harry didn't finish the sentence.

"No," Hermione said. "If he was dead, Dobby would still be able to follow the remains of his magic after this short a time. I read a bit about House Elf magic, it's truly magnificent that was. If Dobby couldn't find him, he might be imprisoned under Anti House Elf wards. After you used him to help full group of captives to escape, it's not really surprising they would do that. We have to wait and hope that they will just fail at some point. Anti House Elf wards are not very stable and have to be renewed periodically."

"Are you sure?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Sure." Hermione reaffirmed with a nod. "Dobby not finding Ron is the best indicator we could get that he is still alive. Why would they bother hiding a corpse from a House Elf."

Harry nodded. "That makes sense. Thank you Hermione. I would have surely despaired without that additional info."

Hermione took on a mock strict expression "It's not really new that I would help you out with regards to knowledge, is it now?"

Harry grinned. "Not really, no."

Hermione started smiling as well. "Not really, no." She became serious again. "We should go tell Bill and Fleur. And this time please let me come. The rest was nice and all, but if I stay in bed any longer I'll go crazy."

In response, Harry held out a hand to help her up and she grabbed it thankfully.

* * *

Bill, Fleur, Hermione and Harry spent most of the afternoon planning for their heist in Gringotts, though Hermione and Harry took some time to talk with Luna and Dean some more. Several times during the plotting and planning they had cursed the fact that they hadn't been able to get Bellatrix' wand. That would make the impersonation much more believable. But well, what they didn't have, they didn't have. They would have to make do. At the end, they had a risky, but doable plan that they all agree they would not be able to improve in the short time frame they had to work with. After saying good night, everyone went to bed early. Bill and Fleur, because they wanted to be up early tomorrow to prepare for Operation Riddle Robbing, as they had named it, the rest, because they were still somewhat exhausted from their ordeal in the hands of the enemy.

Harry said good night to Hermione and Luna before helping Fleur to prepare the living room couch to sleep on. Dean had insisted Harry take the couch while Dean took the armchair, knowing that Harry would need his strength tomorrow, even though he didn't know for what exactly. Harry had tried to refuse, but Dean was having none of it and in the end Harry thankfully accepted the offer.

When everything was ready, Bill and Fleur bid them a good night and Harry and Dean went to sleep.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading Chapter 3 of this story. Have a good day :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_Hi again :) As always, I don't own Harry Potter._

 **Chapter 4**

 _Harry was angry. His servants had had Potter but he got away, because Granger somehow managed to trick Bella into believing the slave spell had worked. Now he needed answers. Weasley was kneeling in front of him. Harry turned to his loyal Bella. "Leave me alone with him."_

 _Bella bowed. "Can I ask why you don't just use the slave spell on him, my Lord?"_

" _After it failed for you with Granger, I won't use it until I can do some more research and somehow verify how it works. Now leave."_

 _Without another word, Bella left._

 _Harry turned back to Weasley and ordered with a cold voice "Now Weasley, tell me all you know about Potter."_

 _Weasley stayed silent and shook his head._

" _No?" Harry laughed cruelly. "Well, don't worry, I have ways to find out without you talking. Usually I would torture you until you talk, but I imagine that might take some time with you, after all, your Mudblood is with Potter as well, isn't she? Sad really, I had such high hopes for the new generation of Weasleys. Anyway, I don't have that much time, so I'll have to take a more direct approach." Harry raised his wand. "Legilimens!"_

 _He was surprised by what he found. "Ah, I see some rudimentary occlumentic? I'm surprised. Though I guess you are a pure blood, after all, Weasley. Luckily breaking occlumentic down with torture is much easier than getting people to talk." Harry pulled out of Weasley's mind._

" _Crucio!"_

 _Weasley screamed for ten seconds until Harry stopped the spell. "Now, let's try again. Legilimens! Hmm, not quite enough. Maybe I didn't give you enough credit. Your shields are nothing against Potter's these days, but they are not too shabby, Weasley. Oh, some emotion. Don't like being compared to Potter? Jealous?" Harry asked mockingly before once more laughing coldly._

 _Weasley shook his head. But Harry already started talking again. "If you had just come to me, I could have made you great Weasley. It's not to late. Join me now, and you can be better than Potter. And I'll even throw in the Mudblood, though I would think you can find someone better once you are in my service."_

 _Weasley said something, but his voice was weak and Harry couldn't hear. "Sorry, I didn't hear you there, Weasley. What was that?"_

 _Weasley looked up to him, his face contorted in hate and anger. "SCREW YOU!" With that he spit in Harry's face._

" _You worm. Well then I guess we have to do this the hard way. CRUCIO!"_

 _Weasley screamed and screamed for nearly a minute. Disposing of the small talk, Harry just raised his wand. "Legilimens!"_

 _This time he easily went past Weasley's occlumentic. What he found enraged him even more. Potter knew. He knew about the Horcruxes. And he had already destroyed some of them. The Book, the Ring and the Locket were gone._

 _On the other hand, Potter was probably in Shell Cottage. That would be a nice target for attack. True, he would not be able to see it, because Weasley was not the secret keeper, but a nice area attack with fiendfire should still be able to take care of the house and all inhabitants. He would go himself, with a few of his better Death Eaters. Maybe he was in luck and Potter would still be there. But first he had to secure his other Horcruxes._

 _Harry lifted the spell on Weasley. What would Potter do next? Where would he strike? And then it came to him. Bella had told him all about their capture of Potter. They would know that something was in Gringotts._

" _Lucius, Bella." Harry shouted out._

 _Both his Death Eaters came into the room immediately._

" _Lucius bring Weasley back to the cell and renew the Anti House Elf Wards on them."_

 _Lucius bowed and took Weasley away, who was at the moment to weak to do just about anything._

" _My dear Bella. You need to do something for me. Tomorrow morning as soon as Gringotts opens. You have to bring me back the item I gave you years ago for safe keeping. I can't trust anyone else with this. Do not disappoint me. Do you understand?"_

" _It shall be done as you say, my Lord."_

After that Harry awoke with a scream.

* * *

When Hermione was woken up by a scream, she knew exactly who it was from. It seemed Luna had the same idea and in basically no time both stormed down the stairs, wands at the ready. They found Harry on the couch, sweating and Dean standing close to him, wand brandished as well. Bill and Fleur came down only seconds after Luna and Hermione.

Seeing that there was no immediate danger, Hermione put her wand away, waked over to Harry and sat down on the couch. She knew, of course, what had to have happened to make Harry scream like this.

"What is it Harry? What did you see?"

"H... He... He knows. He will attack here. He'll bring the them to safety. He knows."

Hermione was shocked. "How?"

"Tortured... Ron. Ron was so strong." Harry started to slowly gather some strength. "He refused him. So strong. You would have been proud, Hermione. But he used Legilimens after breaking down Ron's shields with torture."

Harry closed his eyes. Hermione turned around and saw Fleur coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water. Fleur went over, took his head up and put the glass to his lips. "'arry, drink zees. You will feel better." Harry took some gulps from the glass before Fleur put the rest on the table beside the couch.

"What do you mean he will attack?"

Harry answered, more coherently now. "He wants to attack this place."

"But Ron wasn't our secret keeper? And even then you said he used Legilimens, Ron never talked about the place?"

"But he knows the general location. He wants to do an area attack with fiendfire."

Bill's eye brows went up in shock. "We have to evacuate." he said.

"We have some time," Harry answered, "He won't attack until the item in Bellatrix got the item we wanted to steal out of her vault. We need a new plan for that. Bellatrix will got o Gringotts as soon as they open tomorrow to retrieve the thing."

Bill nodded. "Alright. Fleur. You wake up Ollivander and Griphook. Then prepare for evacuation of everyone to Aunt Muriel's house. Ron doesn't know about that, so Voldemort can't find out about it, not even through legilimency. Luna and Dean will help you. Hermione, Harry and I will try to think up a new plan to get that item they need."

Fleur nodded and she, Luna and Dean left the living room.

Bill came over. "Why do you put so much trust in my words?" Harry asked.

"The same... source of intelligence saved dad once. Why wouldn't I put trust in your words? Also there is not really a decision to make. We can evacuate Shell Cottage and the only risk is we do so without reason. We can stay and the risk is we all burn to death." Bill shrugged. "Seems easy enough to me."

Hermione meanwhile wiped some of the sweat on Harry's forehead away with a handkerchief. "But what do we do about Gringotts?" she asked.

Bill thought for a while, then he said "Now that we know they will move it, it might be to our advantage, if we are fast enough. Will she be alone?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. He is a bit paranoid and doesn't want to trust too many people with this item. I thought the same thing, it could be an advantage. Our previous plan was not exactly fool proof anyway."

"Bella will not be able to port key inside of Gringotts or on the stairs." Bill said.

"So we observe the area and when she steps out of Gringotts we ambush her on the stairs?" Hermione asked.

"We have to be fast, but it can work. We can send Dobby to tell us when she arrives. Then we all stay prepared and when she comes back out, Dobby tells us again and we apparate in. We take her out, get the item and then port key to Aunt Muriel's house." Bill confirmed Hermione's question.

This was quite a lot action for Hermione's taste. Much more than if their previous plan had gone flawlessly. But she had to admit that of the two plans this one probably had a better chance of success.

"What do you think, Harry?" She asked.

"I think it's as good a plan as we can manage in this new situation." Harry replied.

Hermione nodded. It was decided.

"Alright then, we should prepare whatever we need to prepare." Bill said.

* * *

Not a lot of sleep was gained that night. The evacuation started at six in the morning with Griphook and Ollivander. Luna and Dean left shortly after. Fleur would leave once Dobby reported that Bellatrix had entered Gringotts, which would open at seven. The group mostly sat around in nervous silence.

Hermione noticed that she was feeling slightly off as the night progressed, but she put it to the back of her mind. This was not the time. She had to stay focused. She had to be alert to be able to protect Harry. But still, she felt somewhat weird. It was a bit like this feeling you got when you were not yet unhappy about something, but you were about to be. She just couldn't place it and so once more, she decided to ignore it for now. After they got whatever was in Bellatrix vault there would be more time to ponder this.

At least Harry managed to find the time alone to tell her that Voldemort had stated that he wouldn't use the slave curse again before he had some time to research it more. Hermione had feared that he would use it on Ron and so having that fear alleviated helped her a lot in gathering new strength.

At 7:01 am there was a loud crack. "Death Eater Crazy Lady now is inside Gringotts, Harry Potter Sir."

"Good. Observe the entrance. As soon as you see her, come get us."

"Dobby will be most observant, Harry Potter Sir." With another crack, the House Elf was gone again.

"This is it." Bill said.

Harry seemed to have doubts. "Maybe we should have just waited under the invisibility cloak."

Bill shook his head. "Too dangerous, if someone notices you apparate in, the whole mission is futile. Dobby is a House Elf, no one will pay attention to him. Trust me, this is much safer."

Harry looked at Bill and then nodded his understanding.

Hermione knew they would probably have to wait for another half hour or so, but she already prepared by brandishing her wand. She just hoped that Harry would still talk to her after this morning. She had to protect him, and the best way to protect him was to end the fight quickly. And the best way to do that would be the killing curse. Not that Hermione was terribly opposed to killing Bellatrix Lestrange, but using the killing curse still felt wrong to her. But it didn't matter. She had thought about it for the whole night, and the more she thought about it, the more it became clear to her. If it helped in protecting Harry she would use any spell she could find, no matter how much she didn't like it. She just hoped that Harry would understand. To him the killing curse must feel even worse than for her, after all he had a very prominent history with that curse. She would try something else first, but if it didn't work...

Harry readied himself as well, while Bill tried to get Fleur to leave. Fleur relented, but very pointedly said "I'll see you all later." before giving Bill another searing kiss, that Hermione could see held the promise of greater things to come later. Then she port keyed away.

Then they waited. 7:05... 7:10... 7:15... 7:20... The time seemed to pass infinitely slow. But if this worked, only two Horcruxes would remain. No one really talked, all preparing in their own mind for what was to come.

7:25... Any minute.

7:30... did she really have to take her time like this. It couldn't be too pleasant to let Voldemort wait now, could it?

7:35... What took her so long?

7:40... Everyone was getting nervous. What if something had happened to Dobby and that's why he couldn't report? Hermione didn't put that thought into words, fearing what it might do to Harry's concentration.

7:43... Come on Dobby, come on.

7:45... Hermione closed her eyes and silently prayed that everything was still going according to plan. Maybe the Lestrange vaults were just very deep.

7:48... CRACK. "She's be coming outside now, she's being coming, Harry Potter Sir."

They held on to each other, because they needed Bill to help them apparate through the fidelius charm and with one loud crack, they left the kitchen of the house. They landed at the foot of Gringotts steps, not ten metres away from a surprised Bellatrix Lestrange who was carrying a small, black pouch.

"Stupify! Expelliarmus! Incarcerus!" Harry shouted immediately.

Bill went for "Impedimenta! Stupify! Stupify!"

They had decided to use easy and fast spells in order to keep Lestrange from advancing down the stairs.

Hermione had planned something different. She took some more time to aim at Lestrange's feet "Bombarda!"

But Lestrange had a shield up before any of the spells could force her to retreat. Even the Bombarda made it only waver slightly. They needed to end this fast, it wouldn't take long before more would come to help Lestrange out.

"Avada Kedavra!" Lestrange shouted, her wand pointing at Hermione, who had to dodge out of the way. Turning around, she saw that Harry had been about to try and push her out of the way. That would have likely gotten him in the line of the curse. Hermione couldn't allow that to happen.

Bill meanwhile was using some more advanced curses that Lestrange still shielded while going sideways on the stairs put some more distance between them without retreating. Harry continued to fire a quick succession of curses. Hermione knew, however it was only a question of time until Lestrange would find an opening to shoot another curse. And Hermione knew she couldn't let it come to that. She knew what she had to do.

Breathing in deeply, she focused all the hate she had in herself on the woman that had forever taken away her freedom. She opened her eyes and saw her standing still while shielding an especially fast succession of curses shot by Harry. Hermione raised her wand and with a mixture of hate and regret in her voice, she intoned, not much above a whisper. "Avada Kedavra!"

Everything stopped for a moment. The green curse travelled to Lestrange encircled by a multitude of spells that Harry and Bill had shot. But now, the two of them had stopped in surprise and shock. Lestrange seemed equally astonished as she didn't seem to be able to move. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Hermione knew Lestrange had to doge. She couldn't release the shield without being hit by one of Harry's curses before conjuring something into the way. But still, Lestrange didn't move.

And then, in the last moment Lestrange kept up the shield and seemed to act in instinct as she held the pouch she carried into the path of the killing curse.

The curse connected and instantly an unbearable scream could be heard. Out of the pouch came a screaming black ghostly form, like Hermione had seen before. It screamed in agony for a few seconds, then it imploded. At the same time, the pouch seemed to explode in a shower of gold and red metal. Harry, Bill and Hermione quickly conjured shields to keep from being hit by the sharp metal pieces, as did Lestrange on the other side. However, before they could react, Lestrange used the ceasing of spellfire sprint down the stairs and with a shout of "Headquarters" she port keyed away.

Hermione looked to Harry and Bill who looked at her somewhat in disbelief, but to her relieve she couldn't find disgust in Harry's eyes, at least. She was shaken out of her musings by several cracks.

"Quick we have to go." Bill commanded.

Hermione opened the bag they had brought and cast "Accio Metal Pieces". They should make sure that it was really not a horcrux anymore.

She saw the Death Eaters approach while the last of the pieces flew into her bag.

"Ready!" she shouted.

"To the Burrow!" Bill shouted to activate all their port keys.

They travelled in a swirl of colours before hitting solid ground again. Hermione turned around to Harry, who despite not saying anything seemed unhappy. She silently pleaded with him to talk later, and was relieved when he nodded in acceptance. Bill on the other hand didn't seem to like waiting. "What the hell was that, Hermione?"

"I had to do something to end this quickly. The first killing curse could have killed me, or even Harry had he tried to push me out of the way."

"So you just decided to use the darkest curse in existence? Are you for real?"

"Something had to be done and you know it Bill. Everything else wasn't working."

"We could have overwhelmed her shield if you had fired more curses, I'm sure of it."

"But this worked better, didn't it?" Hermione defended herself.

"That's not the point." Hermione just wanted to retort, when the discussion was cut short by a loud cry of pain. When Hermione turned around she saw Harry clutching his forehead, staggering around before starting to fall to the floor. Hermione sprinted back to him while he fell on her knees and was there on her knees to catch him before he landed face first in the mud. Harry screamed again and it hurt her ears, but she didn't let got. She hugged him to herself tightly, whispering soothing words in his ear while Harry continued to scream and scream. Finally after two minutes or so, he stopped. He was shivering and had sweated right through his clothes. "Hogwarts..." he whispered, just before he went limp in her arms.

* * *

 _Once more, I hope you enjoyed reading. A good weekend to everyone :)_


	5. Chapter 5

_Hi again :) I do still not own Harry Potter. For those who noticed and are confused, I changed the rating down, after reading some more about the ratings and comparing to some other fics I read._

 **Chapter 5**

NO! NOOO! It couldn't be. Another one of his horcuxes gone. How had Potter known? How? Only Nagini and the one in Hogwarts were left. "CRUCIO!"

Bella screamed. "CRUCIO!" Bella screamed more. She had failed him. She had failed him. "CRUCIO!". He held the course for a minute, relishing in Bella's sweet screams. She would die painfully for failing him. Now he had to secure his remaining Horcruxes. He couldn't just walk into Hogwarts, so he had to keep Nagini close. He looked down on Bella with anger and renewed the curse. "CRUCIO!" Sweet, sweet screams. Wait... was that maybe it? When he was angry he didn't have the connection under control. Is that how Potter knew? Voldemort lifted the curse and focused on his mind, searching for the connection with Potter.

There it was, wide open. He tried to close it, but he couldn't. So instead, he focused on calming himself down. Slowly, the connection to Potter closed.

* * *

Hermione was sick with worry as she sat besides Harry's bed. Hogwarts? What did he mean with that. Was something happening at Hogwarts? It had been two hours since Harry went unconscious. She needed to do something for him, but she didn't know what. Thankfully, Bill had relented after Harry had broken down. The Weasley family sat together now in another room, worrying for Ron. Molly had seemed to be angry at her and Harry, but Arthur and the twins had quickly taken her away before words could be exchanged. Hermione was thankful for that. She was angry enough with herself, she didn't need Molly to help her feel bad about Ron.

Fleur had been in to take care of Harry's and Hermione's injuries, but now she was in the other rooms, treating the still prominent injuries of Ollivander and Griphook. Luna had sat with Hermione for a while, but she had left to help Fleur with the others now. As Hermione couldn't think of anything she could do for Harry, she instead opened the bag with the metal pieced she collected. She took a few of them out but could feel absolutely nothing from them. So she emptied the bag on the floor and started to comb through all the pieces. Taking up one at a time and putting it to the side when she was satisfied that nothing came from it. After ten minutes, she was sure that the Horcrux had been destroyed. She was just about to put the pieces back into the bag, when she heard a muffled groan from somewhere above her.

She quickly stood up and turned around to find Harry. Her face broke in a smile when he looked back to her. She took his hand in both of his and said "Never do that again. I was so worried."

"He closed the connection now, I think. He realised how I got all the information."

"What happened?"

"He was really, really angry. He tortured Bellatrix for minutes."

Hermione nodded. "Kind of expected, after she let his precious Horcrux explode."

Harry looked at her. "Is it really gone?"

"I just combed through all the pieces and couldn't feel anything from them. You should probably do it again because you have a better feel for that, but I think it's gone."

Hermione smiled as Harry made a fist in success. Then he looked to Hermione.

"I know the last two." Hermione's eyes widened. "Well I know that the snake Nagini is one."

"That will be hard to get." Hermione said pensively.

"Yes, I think it has to be last."

"What is the other one?"

"Well, I don't know what, but I know where."

Hermione understood. "Hogwarts..."

"Yes."

"Well, it seems we're going back to school then." Hermione concluded.

Harry nodded in reply.

After that, they both fell silent for a while, until Hermione decided that she needed to talk to Harry.

"Harry, about the fight with Lestrange..." But Harry held up his hand and while Hermione had wanted to get everything off her chest in one go, instead she obediently fell silent.

"I am not angry at you for trying to kill Lestrange. I was just surprised that you could cast that curse."

Hermione looked back to him. "She killed Sirius, took Neville's parents, she took away my freedom and tried to get me to kill Ron. If there is one person I hate enough to cast that curse on successfully, it's her."

Harry nodded and sighed. "I realise that in war some thing have to be different..." he trailed off.

"I had to protect you Harry. I would have never been able to do it if I wasn't your slave. But being your slave there was no alternative."

Harry looked at her oddly. "You don't have to do things like that for me, Hermione." he said somewhat pained.

"Yes I do. You cannot order me not to protect you with everything I have. It's not your fault, an order like that simply wouldn't work. I know it as sure as I know I am your slave."

"Ok, but then it is not your fault, either, Hermione. In a way, it is Bellatrix own fault that the killing curse was used against her. Interesting was of karma, I think."

Hermione smiled. "Thank you for understanding, Harry."

To tell the truth, Hermione didn't feel bad so she hadn't exactly needed Harry's words of encouragement. She knew she should feel bad about using that curse, but she just couldn't bring herself to that. Whenever she tried to conjure up some guilt or talk herself down, instead she was stopped by the knowledge that she had behaved like a good slave should. She had Harry's safety over her own discomfort. She had done well. She just couldn't get over those thoughts.

She kept them to herself though. With Harry's new information, the war was coming to a close fast and Harry couldn't be distracted by worrying about what might happen to her. She didn't like keeping secrets from him, but as she couldn't really properly explain anything at the moment, it would only serve to worry him. And she did like Harry worrying about her even less than keeping secrets from him. She was there to serve and help him however she could. She wasn't there to cause him worry.

So she decided to talk to Harry after the war was over, when being distracted by her situation wouldn't immediately put him into the danger of dying.

* * *

It was the early evening when Harry, Hermione, Luna and Dean said their good byes to the Weasleys and Fleur. They had rested for most of the day, Hermione reluctantly and only on Harry's orders leaving Harry's side for a few hours to get some sleep herself. Now they would leave for Hogwarts. Then only Nagini would remain.

Hermione knew Harry was sad that Ginny wasn't there with them. She had sneaked out together with Fred and George to get more food. Mrs Weasley didn't seem very pleased with that at all, but had kept silent throughout the day.

"Thank you for your help, Bill, Fleur." Harry said, but Bill waved it away.

"It was the right thing to do. I hope you will find what you look for in Hogwarts. End this war, Harry, and bring back my brother."

At the same time, Hermione was talking to Arthur. "I promise we will do whatever we can to get Ron back." Hermione felt somewhat bad lying to Arthur. She knew she wouldn't do what she promised. True, she desperately wanted to get Ron back, but she would never risk Harry for it. She simply couldn't.

The man surprisingly shook his head. "End this war. It's what he would want you to do. As hard as it is for me to say this, you will help no one if you are killed in some reckless rescue attempt."

Hermione nodded sadly. Arthur went over to Harry.

"Our family will stand firmly beside you if it ever comes to battle, Harry. You can count on that."

"Thanks, Mr Weasley." Harry answered, grabbing the man's offered hand in his own. Then he said somewhat careful "Mrs. Weasley..." The Weasley matriarch was absent from the current scene.

"My wife will come to her senses soon, I promise, Harry, and you as well, Hermione. Don't let yourself be distracted by that. She would never forgive herself if you were killed because you were distracted by her behaviour."

Harry and Hermione nodded. With that, they all left the house. They walked a few hundred metres to get out of the wards and immediately apparated to Hogsmeade. They arrived to the sound of alarms going off...

* * *

Who would have thought, Harry mused, while enjoying standing in the midst of his school friends, that the barkeeper of the Hogshead was Aberforth Dumbledore, Professor Dumbledore's younger brother. Certainly not Harry. But they had been lucky that he was. Getting away from the alarms and into Hogwarts would have been quite a pain without the grumpy man's help.

But now he and Hermione stood in the Room of Requirement, surrounded by those they had had gone to school with for six years. He had spent the last ten minutes explaining the situation outside and that they had lost Ron. Harry felt like he was back home. As he turned around to some sound behind him, he thought that only two things were missing, one of which was...

"Ginny!" He shouted out as he saw her entering the room through the same hole they had done, together with Fred, George and Lee Jordan.

She sprinted towards him and jumped in his arms, and without thinking about it, Harry pressed his lips on hers, the two sharing a longing kiss. Now if only Ron would appear, everything would be alright, Harry thought. Maybe Dobby had managed to find him by now. He looked instinctively threw a hopeful glance to the portrait their group had come through just ten or so minutes ago, but sadly, no Ron to give.

Ginny seemed to notice the absence of her brother as well. "Where is Ron?" she asked expectantly.

Harry was about to answer, but he wasn't sure if he could lie to Ginny the same way he did to Bill. Luckily, Hermione seemed to notice his conflict and helped him out. "We got captured by the Death Eaters. I managed to trick them but before I could get both Ron and Harry out of there, Ron was hit by a curse and I had to leave him. I'm sorry, Ginny. As far as we know, he is still alive and imprisoned."

Ginny had an expression of horror on her face but she at least didn't seem to try and blame Hermione, like Mrs Weasley had done. "He's still alive?" She looked to Harry for confirmation.

"Our last information is from earlier this afternoon. Dobby can't find him which means he is imprisoned under Anti House Elf wards. If he was dead, Dobby would be able to find him and they won't go through the trouble of Anti House Elf wards just to hide him from us if he was dead. So yes, we think he is still alive. He was definitely alive yesterday night."

Ginny seemed somewhat relieved, though understandably still worried. "What are you doing here?" Harry asked.

"I sent them a message." Neville answered for her, showing his DA coin. "If you came back, that can only mean we will take back Hogwarts from Snape and the Carrows, won't we?"

"Of course we will." Ginny said firmly.

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I'm here for something else. I need to do something, and in the best case, do it in secret. It will help defeat You-Know-Who once and for all, but I cannot be seen."

"Then let us help" Neville demanded. Harry meanwhile was distracted when Cho Chang climbed through the portrait hole as well. He looked to Neville again, who just shrugged. Harry was getting worried. He would disappoint a lot of expectations, but he couldn't lead them into danger like this.

"Listen to me, people. We can't stage a prison break here, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have risked so much to come back here..."

But a tap on the shoulder interrupted him. He turned around to Hermione, who whispered "Maybe they know something. There are a number of Ravenclaws here, they could know about an item tied to her." Harry scrunched up his face thinking about this. "They won't be in any more danger, just by giving us information." Hermione added.

Harry weighed the pros and cons. Hermione was right, he knew next to nothing about Ravenclaw and he assumed Hermione was only slightly better off, or else she would have already said something. She was also right that their was little danger involved. But on the other hand, he couldn't let the knowledge about Horcruxes get out in the open. Maybe if he just described what he was looking for. Would they tell him without questioning for more information? After a minute of thought, he decided to risk it.

* * *

They were in luck. Luna had had an idea. Ravenclaw's Diadem. But Harry needed to get to Ravenclaw tower. Cho offered to take him but Ginny was quick to strike that down and have Luna lead him instead. Hermione wouldn't follow Harry. Not that she didn't want to, but the ghost of Ravenclaw tower that they went to see was incredibly shy, so she went against all her instincts to go with Harry.

Harry and Luna were just about to leave. Ginny had once more jumped into Harry's arms and pulled him into a passionate kiss when once more there was a sound behind them. "What are you doing with my little sister, there, Potter?" said a joking voice. It couldn't be... Hermione turned around and... no... it couldn't be. She blinked a few times to make sure she wasn't imagining things. "Ron!" She charged to him and hugged him for all he was worth, relishing in his hugging her back.

Harry was only a little behind her and once she released him, he also pulled Ron into a hug.

"How?" She just asked.

Ron grinned his usual stupid grin. "I'm not sure what you did, but you caused quite the ruckus in Malfoy Manor." He explained while hugging Ginny. "You-know-who and most of his more able Death Eaters went on some mission during midday, but came back quite unhappy. With all that was going on, they must have forgotten to renew the Anti House Elf wards, because Dobby found me and took me to Aunt Muriel's this afternoon. I arrived there shortly after you had left."

George said "I'm surprised mum let you leave again."

Ron became somewhat red. "She didn't. I had to sneak out. I hope she won't kill me if I make it through this war." Hermione chuckled. They had Ron back. Finally.

"So what is going on here?" he asked

"Harry and Luna were just about to go to Ravenclaw tower to ask the Grey Lady about some Diadem of Ravenclaw. It seems it has something to do with Voldemort." Fred answered.

Ron nodded to Harry in understanding. "Let's go then."

Harry shook his head. "No, the Grey Lady is very shy. I'm lucky if she will talk to me alone. You stay here with Hermione."

Ron seemed as doubtful as Hermione felt, but he nodded again and Harry left.

After a few minutes, Ron and Hermione found some time a bit away from the group. Hermione brought up a problem that was bothering her. "Even if they find another one, we don't have the sword anymore. How do we get rid of it?"

Ron looked at her in thought. Then his eyes lit up. "The Basilisk in the chamber of secrets." he whispered. "Surely some of the fangs still have poison in them."

Hermione was surprised. "That's... brilliant." she said brightly.

"Don't have to sound so surprised now, do you?" Ron said with a mock pout.

"Sorry, it's just. It's really brilliant. But we have to wait for Harry to get in."

Ron thought again, and then unexpectedly shook his head. "No, I can imitate the sound Harry makes when he tells things to open. I might need a few tries but I think I can manage to open it."

Hermione was on the fence. On the one hand it was risky to leave the room, potentially for nothing if Ron didn't manage to open the chamber. But on the other hand, the more time they spent in Hogwarts the riskier that was as well. So she decided to trust in Ron's abilities.

They didn't quite manage to sneak out. But when they said they were going to the bathroom, no one questioned their response. It took them a while to get to the second floor girl's washroom, they had to be very careful as Harry had taken the invisibility cloak. But they made it without being discovered.

They found the right basin and Ron made some weird hissing noise at the small snake engraved there, but nothing happened. He tried again but again nothing. Hermione felt somewhat crept out by the noises. Ron tried once more, and this time a clonk was heard and the basin slowly started to grind to the side.

Hermione gulped, relieved that they hadn't made the trip for nothing but cautious as to what lay before them. Both took out their wands and Ron went down the slide first, because Hermione had never been down before. He called up that everything was clear and Hermione went down as well. At least now she knew why they had brought the brooms, she thought idly on her way down. When arrived, it was replaced by another thought. Yeah, this was definitely creepy, she thought as she landed on some bones. The smell was even worse than she would have expected from sewers. She was lucky she didn't fall head first into the mud at the end of the slide. "Are you ok?" Ron asked.

"Let us be out of here fast." Hermione answered.

"Couldn't agree more." Ron confirmed with a grin and turned around to go ahead.

Hermione gathered her bearings and followed him without another word. It was an... interesting walk for Hermione. She somewhat freaked out when seeing the beginning shed skin of the basilisk, that was half concealed by the cave in she had head about in her friends' stories. True, she had heard how big the thing had been, but seeing it was something else entirely, especially when she thought that this was a smaller skin than the beast had been when Harry fought it. She didn't have a lot of time to ponder that, however, because they had started levitating some more rocks out of the way at the point of the cave in. They went through and further down the corridor, and Hermione tried not to look to closely at the shed skin again, because the feeling that her master had fought this beast alone and without her send bad feelings down her spine, even if rationally she knew she hadn't been a slave then.

It took them ten more minutes to come to another door and this time Ron managed to open it in only two tries. Maybe one could learn parseltongue as a regular kind of language, Hermione mused briefly, before gripping her wand tighter. They walked in and Hermione heard Ron say "Blimey!" and had to agree. The chamber was bigger than anything she had imagined, even with Harry description and when she saw the real corpse of the basilisk, her knees nearly gave in.

They started to slowly walk towards it and somehow, for Hermione it seemed the right time to get rid of something that had bothered her since Ron had been back.

"I'm so sorry that I left you, Ron. I was to weak to apparate both of us, and... and... please I'm so..." but Ron interrupted her by holding up a hand.

"I understand, Hermione. Believe me, I understand. While I was imprisoned I kept myself sane with the thought that you were safe. I wouldn't have had it any other way."

Hermione dimly heard the sound of her wand hitting the floor as she closed the few steps between them and took Ron's face into both of her hands, pulling him into a forceful, needy kiss. It was a great kiss, and Hermione lost all sense of time, not knowing how long it lasted. But suddenly her face felt wet. She pulled back and was more than confused when she saw Ron crying. "What is it?" She asked worriedly.

Ron looked at her, still with tears in his eyes and said "I love you, Hermione."

That didn't quite help her along with her confusion, but she still smiled and answered "I love you too, Ron."

Then her eyes got wide in shock as she felt the tip of a wand in her back. "I'm so sorry, Hermione." Ron whispered, and fear started coursing through her. She couldn't understand what was happening. And then everything stopped. "Avada Kedavra."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading :) Sorry for the cliff hanger, but I'll put up the next one some time this evening._


	6. Chapter 6

_Now the sixth chapter. I made some spelling corrections to the previous ones, just in case there is a way to see whether or not a chapter was "replaced" after it was originally released and somebody sees and wonders what happened. I do not own Harry Potter._

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

…Then her eyes got wide in shock as she felt the tip of a wand in her back. "I'm so sorry, Hermione." Ron whispered, and fear started cursing through her. She couldn't understand what was happening. And then everything stopped. "Avada Kedavra."

 _The morning of the same day_

Ron became nervous when he heard someone coming for him. It must be early in the morning. Or maybe it was already later in the Morning? There was light outside and it hadn't been there for too long, but Ron didn't know much more than that. If they came for him, that could only mean one thing. He would be tortured some more. Joy. He didn't particularly like torturing in the morning. But at least Harry and Hermione got away. He just hoped they would manage to reach Shell Cottage and evacuate the others, before You-know-who attacked it.

Hopefully they wouldn't go and stage some reckless rescue attempt. While You-know-who was here, there was nearly no chance of success and while he didn't like being tortured, he could also think of better pastimes than watching his friends die.

Ron watched when Lucius Malfoy entered the dungeon in order walking towards him. Old Lucius didn't look very good, seems Ron hadn't been the only one with a rather uncomfortable night. Then again, Malfoy had looked bad ever since Ron saw him first when they were captured. Poor fellow.

"Get up, Weasley, our Lord wishes to converse with you."

Converse my foot. But on the other hand, there was no reason to start the torture early, so Ron got up before Malfoy had time to cast a spell. "Come with me." He said, walking behind Ron, wand pointed at his back.

Really, Malfoy was a little paranoid, wasn't he. Ron didn't even have a wand. And his hands were tied together. What exactly was Malfoy afraid of? But there he was, pointing his wand at Ron's back the whole way. When they entered the 'throne room' Ron was surprised to see Bellatrix Lestrange kneeling in front of Voldemort submissively. Something seemed different from the usual boot licker submissiveness of the Death Eaters and also from dear Bella's usual crazy self. Hmm... well, he had other things to worry about, Ron thought idly.

"Ah, Lucius, thank you for bringing our guest of honour." That didn't sound too good to Ron. "Untie his hands." that on the other hand...

"But my Lord..." Lucius started but Voldemort stopped him. "Just do it, Lucius."

So Lucius went around Ron and untied his hands. Ron thanked him with a quick right hook to the chin and a left swinger to the nose, that gave way with a satisfying crunch.

"Impedimenta." He heard Voldemort call out and couldn't move anymore, while Voldemort seemed to laugh in amusement. "Good one, Weasley. Usually I would tell you off for fighting like a Muggle, but seeing that you have no other means of fighting available right now, I thank you for the small amusement. I think you will be a good addition to my Death Eaters."

Ron couldn't quite keep from rolling his eyes. As. If. "I'll never join your stupid boot lickers."

Voldemort looked back at him, still with that amused expression in his face. Oh how Ron wished he and Malfoy would trade places. On the other hand, he wasn't quite sure if Voldemort had enough of a nose to actually break it.

"Oh, I think you will." Voldemort said. "Luckily, I will just decide it for you, instead of giving you a choice."

Ron said nothing, waiting for an explanation that was sure to come. Voldemort liked to explain how he was superior to everyone after all.

"You see, yesterday, when your Mudblood pretended to be Bella's slave, Bella obviously didn't believe her just like this. The reason she believed her was because Bella had cast a spell on her that should have made the Mudblood her slave." Ron grinded his teeth at the double use of the derogatory name.

"The Mudblood faked the results, though we are still unsure how she did it. Maybe she read about the spell somewhere, but no matter. Naturally, we couldn't just try again and take the risk of being stabbed in the back at the worst possible moment, so I had to do some more research." Ron was starting to wonder why he was being told all this.

"Luckily, dear Bella here failed me greatly today. You see, she allowed your friends to get rid of another of my Horcruxes, by being cocky. Didn't you, Bella?"

"Yes, Master. I'm sorry, Master."

Ron led out a shout of triumph and was surprised when Voldemort didn't show any anger. "Yes, yes. However, dear Bella's failure provided me with the perfect guinea pig for my spell research. You see..."

* * *

 _A little bit earlier in the morning_

After he had overcome his emotions and closed the connection to Potter, Voldemort looked down at his failure of a servant.

"Please..., please..., My Lord... I'm sorry, please. Please... let me... make it up." she begged.

Voldemort knew she was loyal. It would be sad to kill her. Luckily, an idea came right that moment.

"Bella, dear, you would never lie to me, would you?" He asked.

"No... No my Lord, never, of course not."

"And you would do everything to make it up to me, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Yes, Everything. I promise. I swear." She pulled herself up to kneel in front of him.

"Even become my slave?"

She seemed confused. "I'm already your servant, my Lord, I'm unsure what you mean?"

"Answer the question, Bella, would you become my slave to make it up? You said everything, or was that a lie?"

"No, my Lord, no, please make me your slave if you want, please let me make it up."

Such devotion. He raised his wand and she looked in fear, probably thinking she would be killed. "Vis tibi servienda est."

The beam of black surrounded by a golden Aura impacted on Bella a second later. She glowed for a few moments, then the glow seemed to vanish and the surprise on Bella's face changed to understanding. Once the visual effect was fully gone, Bella bowed her head.

"I'm your slave, Master." Voldemort noticed the different way of addressing him.

"So the spell worked?" he asked.

"Yes, Master. I'm your slave just as you said I would be. Thank you, Master."

"Are you sure the spell worked as it should have?"

"After all you told me about it, I'm certain, Master. It's not my devotion to you, that makes me your slave. I'm simply your slave. If I hated you instead of loving you like I do, it would have worked just the same."

Voldemort smiled looking down at Bella. He noticed that the spell took quite a bit of power, even by his standards. But one more shouldn't be a problem. His smile grew wider and more evil as he turned to his other servant in the room. "Very well, Lucius, bring me Weasley."

* * *

Ok, that story was worrisome, Ron decided. But wait, if Hermione managed to resist, maybe he could, too.

"Anyway, now that I'm certain the spell will work, thanks to Bella over here, I can use you to give Potter a blow from which he will not recover."

Voldemort raised his wand. Ron wanted to move away, but he still couldn't move. "Vis tibi servienda est!"

A black beam with golden aura travelled towards Ron and after a few moments of desperate but futile struggle to move, it impacted on his chest. He felt things... shift... inside him immediately. What was going on. And then he became aware. He was Lord Voldemort's slave now. No, no that couldn't be true, it couldn't be this easy. But it was. He was a slave and Lord Voldemort was his Master. He would do anything his Master ordered, no matter how much he hated it. The glow around Ron became weaker and Ron felt that the spell that constrained his movement was released. Instead of running or attacking, Ron fell to his knees. He didn't want to, but he had no choice. He was in his master's presence. He had to kneel in front of him.

After a few more moments of struggle, Ron couldn't hold back anymore. "Master, what are your orders?"

Ron hated himself for asking. How had Hermione be able to fight this. Why wasn't she a slave to Bellatrix? How? He knew he couldn't fight it. It wasn't about fighting. But wait... Hermione had said the same when she had pointed her wand at him, hadn't she? He tried to remember the exact words she had used.

" _I'm sorry, Harry, there is nothing to fight. I hate being her slave, I just can't do anything. I'm a slave now, I can't go against my Master."_

" _No, Ron. This is not about fighting. I know exactly who I am and who you and they are. My mind is clear, it's not like the imperio. But I have to obey her, no matter how much I don't want to. I'm a slave, I have to obey my Master and do what's best for him, no matter my own wants or needs."_

How could Hermione have known how exactly it would feel if. True, she could have read about the spell, but Ron doubted it. Ron doubted very much that a spell like this would just appear in your average advanced charms book or something and Hermione wouldn't be caught dead with a book on magic as dark as this.

"Are you my slave, Weasley?"

"Yes, Master, just as you planned." Ron was forced to answer. He really wished he could lie, so Voldemort might kill him and write him off as a failed experiment, but he couldn't lie to his Master.

"And are you still opposed to joining my Death Eaters?"

"Yes Master."

"So you still won't join me?"

Oh, how much Ron wished he could say yes. "Master, my wishes don't matter. I will join or not join, however you wish, Master."

Ron tried to distract himself from that rather gloomy conversation by trying to follow his previous line of thought. It worked to an extent, for as a slave he couldn't be disrespectful to his Master and not paying attention was certainly disrespectful.

How had Hermione known? Ron was certain she hadn't known about the spell beforehand, and now experiencing it himself, he had a hard time believing that Hermione was just able to fight it if it had worked. So either it hadn't worked and Hermione had known what to say because she knew of the spell after all or because she had been lucky, but that would have been an awful amount of luck. Or it had worked, and Hermione had been able to fight the effects. Luckily, the option that it had worked and Hermione was under Bellatrix control in order to trick Harry was out, as first of all, they had gotten another Horcrux and second of all, Voldemort had thought the spell might not work. So the only other option was that it had worked and Hermione had not been able to fight it, but she was bound to someone else...

But his Master interrupted his thoughts again.

"Very well, you can join my Death Eaters later, right now you are more use for me if unmarked."

"As you command, Master." Ron said.

"You will be brought back into your cell, but we won't renew the Anti House Elf ward. They sent the House Elf here to find you. Once he does, you will go with him and try to reunite with Potter and your Mudblood. You may let no one outside of this room know that you are my slave. You have to behave in such a way as is completely natural for you, so your friends won't notice. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master." Ron feared where this was going, but he knew he couldn't disobey his Master.

"I want you to get the Mudblood alone. Kill her."

Ron felt his eyes go wide. "Please, Master, please not that..."

"Silence." And of course, Ron had to stop begging.

"You will not let her notice that anything is different until you can kill her, do you understand."

"Yes, Master." Ron wanted to beg for Hermione's life again, but he knew that the command from earlier was meant to prevent all begging and so he couldn't.

"After you did so, stay with Potter. Make it look like the Mudblood deserted him like the Mudblood she is. And then bring him to me as soon as you can. If you can kill some more of my enemies without anyone noticing, do that too."

"Yes, Master." Ron was frightened. He wanted to do something, anything... but he couldn't. He had to obey his Master. He simply knew.

"Now, let me teach you a few spells that every one of my minions should know, slave."

Ron replied "I would be honoured, Master.", though nothing could be farther away from the truth.

* * *

To Ron's increasing horror, everything seemed to go according to his Master's plan. In the afternoon, Dobby suddenly appeared, the little guy elated that he could save 'Harry Potter Sir's Weazhy'. He wanted to tell him to leave him there, but Ron couldn't do it. Instead he played the relieved captive for Dobby, behaving exactly as he would have if he wasn't his Master's slave.

Dobby took him to his family, who was staying at Aunty Muriel's. Luckily, he had missed Harry and Hermione by a margin, but to his dismay his family knew where they went and happily told him. Once more he felt lucky when his mother forbid him from going after his friends, but he knew it would only buy him some time. In fact, it bought him about 10 or maybe 20 minutes. Then he had stolen one of Muriel's spare wands and managed to sneak out of the house.

At that point, everything went south very fast as Ron remembered his Master's orders. _"If you can kill some more of my enemies without anyone noticing, feel free to do that."_ No. No, he couldn't do that. He desperately thought, please, please, not this. I can't guarantee no one gets away. Then they could warn Harry and Hermione. Ron nearly had convinced himself that he would better serve his master by not attempting to attack his family. But he knew he could attack them without them knowing who it was. After all, his Master had taught him fiendfire. He could just turn around and cast it. Some might get out, but they would just assume he had sneaked out before the fire and that the fire was started by Death Eaters.

Ron desperately, desperately thought for a reason, any reason not to do it, while he already raised his wand. Please, let there be a reason, please. When that didn't work he thought as hard as he could, I have to resist, I have to. I can just walk away, just leave them be. But to no avail. The fact remained that he had to follow his Master's orders, he couldn't deny him. He closed his eyes as he summoned up his magic to cast the spell, and apparated away just after the spell had left his wand, eyes still closed. He didn't want to know.

He got to Hogsmeade and then Hogwarts without a big problem. He was forced to push his family to the back of his mind, as he couldn't seem sad when he would meet his friends, or they might notice something. As it was, he had only been ten or fifteen minutes behind Harry and Hermione. He prayed that they would notice something was wrong, but they didn't. Harry left and all Ron could do was pray that he wouldn't find an excuse to catch Hermione alone. But of course, fate had a different plan. Hermione himself helped him out, by mentioning their need for something to destroy a Horcrux.

Ron was horrified at how well the chamber of secrets would serve his Masters purpose, but once he had had the idea, he couldn't do anything to prevent it. He and Hermione left the room and went to the bathroom on the second floor. Down the slide and past the cave in they finally made it into the chamber. On the way, Ron had thought about attacking Hermione several times. She had been behind him, wand at the ready. Maybe she would be able to defend herself and knock him out. But he never could. He knew, if he was patient, a situation would come in which Hermione would not be able to defend herself soon enough. Being patient would serve his Master best.

And so it did. When Hermione let go of her wand to pull Ron into a kiss, Ron knew he had to kill her now. But at least he didn't need to hide it from her anymore, and so he freely started crying. For his family, as that had been denied to him before, and for Hermione. When she noticed, he pressed his wand tip into her back. Just as she had done, he managed to tell her that he loved her, and that he was sorry. And then he had no way left to postpone following his Masters orders any longer. He had to kill her. And while his Master hadn't said it, he knew exactly what spell his Master wanted him to use. After all his Master had taken great care that he knew it. At least it wouldn't hurt Hermione. For a moment he wished beyond wishes that something would happen to stop him... But he knew what he had to do.

"Avada Kedavra."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading. Have a good start in the week :)_


	7. Chapter 7

_Hi :) I know the double cliff hanger at the same point was probably not appreciated, but it was the best chapter structure I could come up with. So sorry. It will be resolved now. I want to thank everyone who shared their thoughts with me. I do seek to improve my writing and while I do not make many changes to this story (only last minute ones that don't impact the later chapters too much), I do try to learn from my mistakes in order to not repeat them with possible other stories. There are so many others to make :-p So thanks for that. For completion, let it be known that I do not own Harry Potter._

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

Hermione didn't understand. Why? Harry had said that Voldemort wouldn't use the spell until he could research it more. Was this Ron on his own? No, that could simply not be. The Imperio? But the amount of emotion Ron showed was odd for an Imperio. Certainly she would have noticed if Ron was under the Imperio. Ron would at least have been able to fight it a little, wouldn't he? And then she would have noticed.

And most of all why was she still alive? But she pushed those questions to the back of her mind. She couldn't think about those things right now. Ron had tried to kill her, would probably try again, so she had to do something. Luckily, Ron seemed just as surprised at her being alive as she was. She managed to push him away a few steps and dove for her wand on the floor.

Raising her wand while turning around she already had a stunning spell on her lips, but Ron had the advantage of already having his wand out and was faster than her.

"Expelliarmus!"

Being on the floor, Hermione couldn't dodge and tried to finish her own spell as quickly as possible, but her wand was yanked out of her hand just before she could complete the spell. Luckily, Ron was still slightly out of balance due to her earlier shove and so he didn't manage to catch her wand out of the air and it flew past him.

The time he took on trying to catch the wand was enough for Hermione to get up off the floor and start moving around Ron to his other side.

"Stupify!"

She dodged the stunner, and raced past Ron to once more dive for her wand, but Ron was a little faster than she had expected.

"Depulso!"

The banishing spell connected while she was in the air and she was pushed past her wand, unable to grab it due to her increase in speed and the spin that was added due to the spell. She landed hard on the floor a few metres past her wand and it took a few more meters until she came to a halt. Her knee was bloody and the ankle of her left hand that she had used to lighten her initial impact with the floor throbbed badly.

Turning around, she saw her wand flying into Ron's hand. She had been a bit to preoccupied with tumbling over the floor to actually here him summon it. When Ron looked at her and once more pointed his wand, she grovelled back until her back hit something hard... the Basilisk she realised.

Ron came towards her slowly. She tried to evade him towards her right side, but a confringo hex hit the spot where she had wanted to move to. She turned back around towards Ron with her back against what she assumed to be the basilisks neck, as closely to her right, where the hex had hit, the lower jaw seemed to start.

"Tell me how you managed to fight the slave curse, quick Hermione, maybe I can manage to before I kill you." Ron begged with desperation in his voice.

So it was the curse. Hermione slumped a little. Then Ron wouldn't stop until she was dead, she knew. But she also knew that the Ron she loved still existed, only that he had a Master, probably Voldemort. So she answered truthfully. "I didn't. I couldn't fight it either."

"But then..." Ron started but stopped.

Hermione knew he already came to the conclusion, but she confirmed it nonetheless. "I'm Harry's."

Ron let his head fall in hopelessness. "I'm so sorry Hermione. My Master ordered me to kill you. I'm so, so sorry."

Hermione tried to smile at him. "I understand. If anyone understands, it's me." In the back of her mind, she thought furiously. She was under no illusions, Ron was sent not only to kill her. He would also betray Harry. She needed to do something to save Harry at all cost. She looked around for something that could help her. Anything. She needed to save Harry. If she died it didn't matter, but she needed to do something to save Harry from Ron. If only the blasting hex had... she looked to the floor around the mouth of the dead beast. There! One of its fangs had fallen out. She just needed to be a little closer. Just a little.

She tried to move to her right again, and again Ron shot a confringo hex to keep her in place. But this time, it was for Harry, so she didn't care. The confringo wouldn't kill her, so she took it to her left shoulder, releasing a cry of pain and being pushed back into the basilisks chin. Her shoulder was clearly broken, but at least she wasn't losing too much blood. She looked around again and there was the basilisk fang, close enough to take it. She would just have to wait for the right moment.

"I'm so sorry Hermione, please don't move again, I don't want to hurt you." Ron pleaded with her.

Hermione didn't answer. Pain from her shoulder was dominating her mind, but she tried to ignore it. All her thoughts were focused on the one goal: keeping her Master alive. So much, that she forgot her orders to think of him as Harry. So much, that she didn't think of the fact that if her plan worked, Ron, the man she was in love with, would die a very painful death. All she thought was, I have to keep Master safe. I have to keep Master safe. I have to keep Master safe.

She saw Ron focusing himself. This was it. She had to do something in the next moment. Ron had to summon up enough hate to cast the killing curse on her. It would be difficult for him, because he loved her. She was sure of that after the first curse failed. She could use that to save her Master. Ron came a little closer, a little closer, she wouldn't be able to dodge in this distance, but it was close enough for her to charge him.

Everything slowed down for her. She was focused on Ron's face, watching for the tiniest sign of distraction. Waiting... waiting... waiting... and then suddenly there it was. Ron had closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. Now was her chance. She grabbed the fang with her good hand and pushed herself forward more jumping towards Ron than charging.

"Avada..." The wand was pointed directly at Hermione's chest, but she didn't care. She would reach him. Even if she was dead on impact, the force with which she had pushed herself forward would be enough to sink the fang in her hand into Ron. ...keep Master safe.

"Ke..." She felt the tip of Ron wand poke into her just below her bad shoulder, at the same time as the fang in her right hand impacted with Ron's stomach.

"...davra!" The last thing Hermione heard was a sickening sound of the fang sinking into Ron's stomach. Then she felt the wand releasing the spell directly into her.

* * *

Hermione's body was thrown back from him. The spell had worked. It had worked. He had killed her. Then Ron felt pain searing through him, starting in his stomach. He had seen Hermione was charging towards him, but only now did he see why. A fang. The pain quickly became to much to stay standing, and Ron fell to his knees. Hermione had freed him from Voldemort with her last act.

He looked to where her body had impacted the basilisk corps, as the pain became stronger and he grew weaker every second. Harry hadn't been joking when he said this hurt. His eyes clouded over... he couldn't really see anymore... was there... no...

His fingers became weak and let go of his wand, and he fell forward from his kneeling position.

* * *

Hermione felt her limp body impact with the basilisk. Wait, that couldn't be right. There was no pain the spell had worked, she had to be dead, so why... then pain came back searing into her. What was this? She couldn't move, or she would have screamed out in pain. Why was she not dead. The answer came to her. Ron hadn't been able to do it. He hadn't been able to summon enough hate to kill her. He had been very close this time, but he again hadn't manage to cast the spell correctly.

And then, through the fog of her numbness and through the searing pain, Hermione finally realised what she had done. She had killed him. She had killed Ron. She had... no... no... NO! She tried to open her eyes and look towards him, but she still couldn't move. She had killed him. Then finally the numbness started to go away. She could feel one of her fingers twitch, she managed to open one of her eyes, she saw Ron kneeling a few metres away, obviously weak and in pain. She had done this to him. She had not only killed him she had killed him in a very painful way. Why had she done it? Ron hadn't been able to kill her, but she had. She... she had... Tears started to well up in her eyes as she willed her body to move. With her good arm she pushed herself up from the floor, and onto her knees, just as she heard a _thump_. Ron had fallen over, she wanted to go to him, be with him at the moment of death. She put all her strength in standing up. She made a step towards him. Then another. Then... she stopped. She couldn't go. If he had some close range means to kill her he would use his last strength to do so. She knew, because she would do it as well. In fact, she had when she thought she was about to die. She had killed him. And now she couldn't even go to him. She couldn't risk her Harry's property like this, just to be with Ron. She tried to make another step towards him, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She fell back to her knees and slumped down in defeat. But then she had a thought. Ron's eyes were closed, he probably hadn't seen her move.

"Ron! Ron!" she called out, her voice weak and shaky. "Ron, I'm alive. You didn't manage to kill me. You didn't manage."

Ron opened one of his eyes, it was cloudy, but she saw it focus on her.

* * *

Ron saw her. Well only a shadow, but he knew it was her. She was alive. He didn't kill her. His feelings for her had been strong enough to thwart his killing curse for a second time. A small part of him noticed that he had failed his Master, but a bigger part of him noticed that he had not killed the girl he loved. She would live. She would have a good long life. Harry would make sure of it.

"Yes, Ron, I'm alive. You didn't kill me. You didn't do Voldemort's bidding. You beat him Ron, you beat him. You did what I couldn't do. You managed."

Those words of encouragement were worth so much to Ron that he was able to ignore the pain he felt everywhere by just focusing on Hermione's voice.

"I want to hold you so bad Ron, but I can't. Even now I can't fight the curse. I'm so sorry."

Ron understood. She had to protect her Master's property, herself, and it was dangerous to go close to him as long as he was alive. He understood.

"U... under...stand" he managed to croak. She was alive. That was all he needed. He didn't want her to risk her live by holding him anyway.

"T... tell.. Ha.r... sor...y." He croaked.

"I will, I will Ron, I'll tell him everything once this war is over." Hermione promised. "I love you, Ron, I'll never forget."

"L...ve... too" was the last he could say before his strength left him completely. He wanted to keep open his eye, to see her. But slowly it closed as well. He felt a tear form. Then there was nothing. And then there was warmth...

* * *

Hermione desperately wished to go to him. He couldn't be a danger now. He was taking his last breaths. He couldn't be a danger now. She watched his eye slowly fall close, saw a tear form. Please just let me go to him. Just this once. I promise to never fight being a slave again just please let me go... PLEASE!

And then she felt herself move. She was there before she could think. She wasn't sure he even noticed. She took up his head and cradled it in her arms. She could still hear him draw a weak breath. She had just made it. She had made it. He was still alive. Without thought she pushed her lips on his.

* * *

Ron felt the kiss. He returned it as good as he could. It would be the last thing he'd ever do. Only moments later, Ron Weasley was dead.

* * *

Ron had noticed her kiss. She had managed to be there for him in the moment of death his death, Hermione thought in tears, while she lay her friends head back down onto the stone floor. Hermione cried for her friend, but she knew she had to go back to Harry. She took up her wand and cast a few basic, preliminary healing charms on her left shoulder. She still couldn't really use it, but at least the bleeding stopped and the pain was less throbbing. She shot a few more confringos onto the basilisks jaw before taking out her dragon skin pouch that could hopefully not be pierced by the fangs and collecting the rest of the fangs. Last she took the fang still in Ron's stomach and added it to the others, before cleaning up Ron's wound a little and closing it to make it look less ghastly.

She thought about whether or not she should get Ron's body later or take it now, but decided to take it now. If she had to retrieve it from the chamber after everything ended, it would lead to questions that she didn't really want to answer. She decided that she had no intent on ever telling Ron's family about what had happened to Ron. It would only cause them pain and sully Ron's memory, as they would never be able to fully understand how it felt being under this curse. She hoped Harry would be with her on that, but was sure she would be able to convince him of her point of view. Harry was the only one he would tell the truth to, not only because she couldn't lie to him anyway, but because she needed her best friend to know what she had done.

She idly wondered if being there for Ron was really for him, or if it was for herself. To feel better with what she had done. She hated that thought. She knew she didn't deserve to feel better. She had killed Ron, while he had been able to not kill her twice. She had just killed him...

Hermione pushed the thought to the back of her mind. She couldn't deal with it now. She had to get back to Harry. Harry had a war to win. After that they could decide what to do.

* * *

Hermione somehow managed to get back up to the girls' washroom with Ron and the fangs, despite her injured arm. But that was as far as luck went.

"What are you doing there, girly."

Hermione turned around, to see who had talked to her and found the surprised face of Marcus Flint look back at her. "Granger!" he hissed and pulled his wand. Hermione had her wand out already so she was able to cast a shield and was just on her way to cast a stunner as well, when Flint stopped his movement. His eyes fell on Ron's body.

"What's with the blood traitor Weasley?"

Hermione's eyes grew wide. Ron was dead and Flint just insulted him. He insulted Ron. Ron who had done so much... Ron... he insulted Ron. Flint's eyes grew wide in fear when a visible aura started to flare around Hermione.

"Avada Kedavra!" He tried, but Hermione simply sidestepped the spell that made one of the windows shatter. Hermione knew she had to end this fast, or more would come to investigate the noise.

* * *

Harry sprinted down a corridor on the first floor. When he had come back to the Room of Requirement, Hermione and Ron had been gone. The ones still there told him that they had said something about a washroom. Harry had been confused, but there hadn't been time to look for them. The battle was about to begin and he had needed to find the diadem.

Luckily, he had been able to find the Grey Lady near the entrance hall, with the help of Nearly Headless Nick. But they had just finished talking, when Dobby had found him. The little guy was visibly on his last leg and he brought the worst news Harry could have imagined. No, even in his imagination Harry couldn't have come up with that. The hideout of the Weasley family had been burned down... it had been Ron. Dobby had seen him apparate away, wand still raised towards the burning building. Dobby had only just managed to save everyone inside: Molly Weasley had needed a rest after worrying so much for her family during the day and had been asleep inside her burning room. Ollivander and Griphook had still not been in a state where they could have saved themselves. And Fleur had nearly been crushed by a falling piece of ceiling. To Harry's great relief they were all safe now and the Weasleys were on their way to Hogwarts. However, it had cost Dobby a lot more time and energy than he had thought and he had lost track of Ron in the process. Now he couldn't find either Ron or Hermione, so he had come to Harry.

After Harry got out of his shock at those news, there was only one explanation for him. The curse they had used on Hermione. And that meant Hermione was in great danger. Please let them be back at the Room of Requirement, please!

He reached the end of the corridor and went down the secret passage to the second floor. Please let it not be too late.

* * *

"Confringo!" Hermione had aimed for Flint's wand arm. She really had. But the idiot boy tried to shield it. Why would he do that, when a visible aura was flaring around her. She knew she had put a bit too much power into the spell, Flint's arm would probably have been gone forever, but right now, that was alright with her. He had tried to kill her after all. But the idiot stepped in front of her spell to stop it with the centre of his shield.

She watched as her spell cut through his shield as if it wasn't there, before it impacted into the boys chest. He looked at her for a moment, surprise evident on his face. Then Hermione turned around to guard her face from what her spell had caused.

* * *

Harry had nearly reached the stairs from second to third floor now. He was nearly there. Only one more corridor.

* * *

Hermione left both bodies in the washroom. She had to get through the castle fast and couldn't really take Ron's body with her now. She had put some conservation spells on it, and had conjured a blanket to hide the body under it. That would have to suffice for now.

Hermione sprinted away from the second floor washroom back to the Room of Requirement, in the hopes that Harry would be there. She knew there would be others and that she would probably have to lie about Ron's death. The idea made her sick, but it needed to be done. She was sure Harry wouldn't want everyone to know the truth. And she didn't either. She only hoped that she would be able to grab Harry on his own for a moment, so she could tell him.

* * *

When he reached the stairs he nearly hit someone who was storming out of another corridor. In an effort to dodge, he lost his balance and fell to the floor. From the noise, the other person didn't fare much better. Before he could turn around, he heard the other person ask "Harry?".

Hermione! He turned around quickly. "Hermione, I've been looking for you. They said you've been out with Ron. Hermione I need to tell you something. Ron. I think they used the curse on him. Dobby just told me he burned down his family's hideout. Hermione we have to find him and capture him before he can harm any other unsuspecting people. Do you know where he is?"

At the news of the fire in the Weasley hideout, Hermione's eyes grew wide, but when he asked where Ron is, Hermione suddenly evaded his eyes.

"Hermione?" Harry asked more carefully now.

He saw tears welling up in her eyes. "Hermione, what happened?"

"I... I killed him Harry." Harry didn't comprehend those words. He couldn't. He couldn't understand what they meant. And yet, looking at Hermione, the truth slowly trickled into his mind. Ron was dead. Dead. His best friend was dead. And his other best friend had killed him. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that Hermione had been given no other option, or she wouldn't have done it. Simply looking at her left arm hanging limply from her body told him as much. But still he needed to know.

"What happened?"

Hermione looked at him, as if she was surprised that he wasn't cursing her or something. Then she closed her eyes and opened them again, a tear running down her cheek. "We went to the Chamber of Secrets. We wanted to get basilisk fangs to destroy the Horcrux once you found it." She took a deep breath. "But Ron, he was under the curse. He had been told to kill me. I assume later he would have betrayed you to Voldemort as well. I... I didn't notice. If I had only noticed earlier... if I had noticed earlier, I could have... I could have... I wouldn't have needed to..." Hermione closed her eyes again.

"But I didn't notice. And then we kissed and I let go of my wand. And that was when Ron tried to kill me the first time. He cried. He didn't want to do it. He tried to fight it. But he couldn't, just as I can't fight it either. But he didn't manage to conjure up the necessary hate for the killing curse. I think Voldemort told him, or implied that he wanted him to use it. It didn't work."

Hermione looked away again. "I tried to get my wand but he disarmed me and when I tried to get it again, he banished me down the floor against he basilisk."

"One of his spells loosened a fang. I... I... couldn't think anymore. All I thought was I have to save my Master from Ron. I have to save my Master... I... I saw the fang. I tried to get closer. He hit me in the shoulder with a blasting hex."

Hermione started sobbing now. "But... I had managed to get close enough. When Ron closed his eyes for a moment to prepare the Avada Kedavra, I grabbed it and charged him."

Harry didn't really need the rest of the story, he had a quite vivid picture. Looking at his sobbing friend, he instead opened his arms. But Hermione just looked at him strangely. "It's ok, Harry. I know you must hate me," she said in a strangely detached voice. "Lord knows I do hate myself for what I did."

Harry gulped. He couldn't have that. Sure, he hated that Ron was dead. But Hermione hadn't had a choice. He firmly believed that if there had been any other way, Hermione would have found it. Harry certainly couldn't think of any. Well, he would probably have let himself get killed by Ron. But Hermione had said something to do with the curse she was under. Simply surrendering had probably not been an option for her. No certainly not. If there was one proof for how strong the curse was she was under, it was that Ron had been able to trick her and try cast the killing curse on her twice. Ron would never have done that if there had been even the sliver of a chance to prevent it.

"Hermione, I'm sorry. It's all because you are bound to me with that stupid curse. Blame me if you want. But don't hate yourself."

Hermione looked at him, her detached look vanishing somewhat. "I won't blame you. You didn't curse me, did you?"

Harry looked at her. "Then don't blame yourself either."

"I should have been able to fight it. I should have been able to..."

Harry shook his head but didn't say anything. He wanted to curl into a ball and cry and rage at the world. He had lost nearly everything in this war. And now it had cost him one of his two best friends. He wanted it to just stop. But it wouldn't. It wouldn't until Voldemort was dead. It wouldn't. Harry knew. He knew what they had to do. For Ron. For Ron they needed to end this. They needed to make it stop or Ron would never forgive them. Harry wanted to curl up in a ball, but instead he pulled Hermione into his arms, while they were both still sitting on the floor. He let her sob into his shoulder for a few moments before he whispered into her ear. "I promise Hermione, after this war, we'll learn everything we can about this curse. And then we'll free you. You couldn't have fought it, Hermione. I know that, because if you could have fought it for Ron, you would have. I know you would have. If you don't believe in yourself, believe in what I tell you. If you weren't able to fight it, no one would have been. It's not your fault. And I need you now, Hermione. I need you focused. We need to avenge Ron and all the others."

Hermione's sobs became calmer. "I promise, Hermione, I'll do everything I can to win this war for Ron. Will you help me?"

She became still. And then she said something he didn't expect. "Order me."

"What?"

"Not forever, but until this war is over. Order me to not think about killing Ron."

"Hermione..." he started.

"Please, Harry. I need to focus, but I'm a wreck. This way I'll either get so angry at any follower of Voldemort that I'll kill them, or I'll become so afraid that I can't do anything and get myself killed. I want to help you, Harry, but I can't focus on my own. Order me. Help me."

Harry looked into her desperate eyes for a long time. He didn't want to order her. But the idea that she got herself killed and Harry could have done something as easy as this to prevent it was too much for him. Finally he made a decision. "Hermione. Until this battle is over, I forbid you to think about why Ron died. Focus on this war. Help me win it." Then he looked deeply into her eye, before he gave the last order. "Survive."

Hermione looked back at him for a few moments. And then her expression changed. From an expression of desperate sadness, anger, insecurity, to one of focus. She bowed her head or maybe she just nodded, Harry was unsure. "As you command, Harry."

"Then come with me, I know where the diadem is."

* * *

 _Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it :) I have to travel tomorrow, therefore I will only post the next chapter sometime tomorrow evening. If you still feel this end too cliff hang-y for your tastes, maybe it helps to know that this is the last one for this story._


	8. Chapter 8

_Hi :) sadly travelling was unsuccessful and after 15 hours in trains and train stations I ended up exactly where I started. I couldn't make the chapter ready for being published during that time, so sorry for the delay. Let's wrap up the war, shall we? I do not own Harry Potter._

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

..."Then come with me, I know where the diadem is."

* * *

They had gotten it. The diadem was destroyed. Hermione briefly thought that they hadn't even needed the fangs, due to the fiendfire, but she couldn't dwell on it. That would lead to thought that Harry had forbidden her. Crabbe had died, but Malfoy still lived. For some reason, Harry had wanted to save him, why, that was beyond her grasp. But it wasn't her place to question his wants, so she just accepted it without thinking about it. She had little room for idle thought. Her mind was dominated by the three things she had been told: Focus, help Harry win, Survive.

Currently, they were on their way to the Shrieking Shack, because according to Harry's vision, the snake was there. The war would end soon, one way or another.

* * *

Harry felt quite lucky that they had been able to avoid the Weasley family. He had heard that they were in the castle, including Percy, but he wouldn't have known what to tell them about Ron. He couldn't tell them the truth. That would be devastating both for Hermione and for them. He would talk to Hermione after the war. They would work something out. He looked behind him, while he made a quick stop in the tunnel towards the Shrieking Shack. Hermione was there, her eyes focused on what lied ahead. He wished someone could order him to focus.

* * *

Hermione was worried. Harry had seen Remus and Tonks dead in the Great Hall. And all the others that were dead or injured. She had seen him leave. Molly Weasley had come her way, but she had run after Harry, she knew he would need her. They hadn't managed to get the Snake. Voldemort was there and Snape. Voldemort had killed Snape. And then vanished. It had been too fast for them to react.

And then that stupid announcement Voldemort had made. One hour. Allowed his friends to die for him. When Voldemort had said to Snape that he understood Harry, he hadn't been joking. Hermione was worried he would go to him. She couldn't let him. Couldn't let Harry die.

So she had gone after him when he had run. To her relieve, he hadn't tried to get to the forest, but rather Dumbledore's office. Of course, she had thought after a brief moment of confusion, the memory Snape had given him. So now she stood outside the office, waiting. She had tried to get in, but the stupid gargoyle wouldn't let her pass. She was worried. What would Harry find in this memory.

Suddenly, a screeching sound, and the gargoyle guarding the doorway revealed Harry. Hermione observed him closely. He looked slumped down. Resigned. What had been in this memory?

He looked up and saw her and his eyes... they clouded over.

"Harry..." she said.

"I have to do something, alone." He tried to evade her as she stood herself in front of him, but she grabbed his hand and turned him around to look at her.

"Harry, what is it?"

His eyes told her everything she needed to know. "No. No. No, you can't go to Voldemort, Harry. You can't."

"I have to." Harry just said.

Hermione looked at him. "You have to nothing. You don't go to Voldemort." She said decidedly, even though the fact that she was trying to give Harry order made her want to vomit. I can't give Harry orders. I'm his. I should fall on my knees and apologise. Hermione battled down that particular thought.

Harry reached for his scar and traced it idly. Hermione thought it was an odd gesture. Then he repeated. "I have to go Hermione."

And then she understood. "You... you are one of his Horcruxes."

Harry simply nodded. "I'm coming with you." Hermione said.

"No." Harry said decidedly. "You are not."

"Harry, you need me by your side." She pleaded with him.

Harry looked at her sadly. "I can't let you throw your life away, because you are bound to me by a dark curse."

No. She needed him to understand that it wasn't the curse. This wasn't the curse. "This is not the curse, Harry, and you know it. This is me. I would be by your side no matter what."

He gave her a sad smile. "I know. I'm sorry for saying this. You would have been with me until the end. I know. I'm sorry, I didn't realise before. All this could have been stopped long ago."

"No. Don't you dare apologise to me. Nothing could have been prevented. Everything happens for a reason. I'll come with you. I won't allow you to face him alone."

Harry looked at her strangely. "Everything happens for a reason?" he asked with a weird voice. He seemed to be in thought for a moment. "Maybe you are right." Then Hermione was surprised when he grabbed her shoulders forcefully and pulled her into a tight hug. She managed to return it eventually, and they held each other for a few moments. Then he grabbed her shoulders again and pushed her away, so that she looked directly into his eyes.

"Maybe you are right and everything happens for a reason. Maybe even that you were bound to me." Hermione felt her eyes widen when she understood what he was about to do. NO! NO! She needed to stop him before...

"Hermione be silent and listen to me!" She snapped her mouth shut just before she managed to say something. No, please not this. "I promised I would set you free. But now I can't. You will belong to me for the rest of your life. Do you understand? Even when I am dead, you will still belong to me. I don't trust anyone else with you. You will survive. You will help the others finish this war. Kill the snake. Tell Neville as well, two people have a better chance than one. When the snake is dead it will only be a matter of time. Voldemort will die. Do everything you can to survive until then. Then, when Voldemort is gone, do everything in your power to make our world a better place. Do it for me, for Ron, for yourself. I know, you would have done that anyway, so I know if I order you now, it's alright. Do you understand Hermione?"

Hermione knew she had to obey. But she could still try to object.

"Please, Harry, please..." But Harry interrupted her.

"Hermione, tell me you understand."

And with that, she couldn't object any longer. She had to obey Harry.

"I understand." She said in a resigned voice.

"Good." Harry smiled at her. Hermione felt tears well up in her eyes. He pulled her into another hug, and the tears slowly started running down her face. She started crying for real, when he gave her a kiss on the forehead. Even her new knowledge told her this was wrong. She should not let her Master walk into his death. But he had ordered her. She knew her Master too well. Surviving meant less to him than ending this war did. And so she had to let him.

"Have a good live, Hermione." He turned around and walked away.

Hermione went to follow. At least a bit of the way. To the castle gates, but she heard him say "Don't follow me. Go back to the great Hall. Find Neville. Prepare to end this war. And remember what I asked off you." Then he turned around and they looked at each other for the last time. A second that seemed so long and still much too short.

"Farewell."

And with that, Hermione had to turn around and walk the other way, as Harry had ordered, tears still running down her face.

* * *

Hermione came back to the hall, and this time Molly Weasley had already be waiting for her. She wouldn't be able to evade her. "Hermione, where are Harry and Ron?"

But at Hermione's tear stricken face, she stopped her way towards her abruptly. Hermione saw the rest of the Weasleys turn towards her in the corner of her eyes. She couldn't think what to say, so she remained silent.

"Are they still alive?" Molly asked in not much more than a whisper.

Hermione didn't give an answer, feeling herself unable to speak.

"Ron?" Hermione was asking herself how many tears she had left in her, as new ones climbed into her eyes. She looked away from Molly and the other Weasleys and slowly shook her head.

A scream of anguish came from Molly as she fell to her knees, sobbing hard. Arthur, Fred and George ran towards Molly, while Bill and Charlie came to Hermione.

"How?" Bill asked.

And that's when Hermione noticed. Harry had never revoked the order that forbid her to think of how Ron died. He had said until the war is over. She wasn't allowed to think about it. She couldn't tell Bill. But she had to come up with something. Something. Something... And so she said the only thing that she could come up with. "Flint... he surprised us. We were searching the castle for something we needed for the fight. Basilisk fangs. You remember, Bill, to destroy those items. He... he came around the corner. He was taunting us... Ron lost control. He attacked blindly. He got hit with a simple banishing curse. But... but he had one of the fangs in his hand. It was banished into his stomach." Hermione stopped at that point. She hoped it sounded convincing. With Harry gone, this would be the story that would be the truth. Not even Hermione herself could really think of the true story.

Bill looked at her. "What happened to Flint."

Hermione thought. What would they want to hear. Maybe she should tell them that Ron died heroically, saving her from Flint? Would that make it better for them? He died for her? That would at least have a grain of truth, and so she went for it.

"Ron's confringo curse connected at the same time. Flint had sidestepped right into it. It should have blasted his arm, but instead impacted right into his chest. He died before Ron was dead. I was with him till the end."

Bill and Charlie nodded in acceptance. "Thank you, Hermione. Thanks for being with him."

Hermione choked up and could only nod.

Bill looked at her. "What about Harry?"

"He's still alive, but I can't talk about him. He needs to do something secretly. I'm sorry, Bill."

Bill kept on looking into her eyes for a long moment and Hermione found herself thinking if he maybe understood. He was a curse breaker. Surely they knew about Horcruxes. Then again, one probably wouldn't come across those in a tomb or there would be no reason for the tomb. Finally, Bill nodded and he and Charlie went to be with the rest of their family.

Hermione started searching for Neville.

* * *

Neville had killed the snake. Hermione didn't understand how exactly he got through Voldemort's body bind, but it mattered not. The snake was dead. Now she had to follow Harry's orders. Survive.

She somehow found herself in the great hall. Lestrange was there. Hermione used her best protection spells around herself and, whenever she could, also others. Survive, was the only thing on her mind. She actually heard the order in Harry's voice. Survive! A killing curse nearly hit Ginny. And then suddenly Lestrange and Molly Weasley were engaged in a duel.

Hermione was afraid for her. Something seemed different with Lestrange. She wasn't as cocky as she used to be. Hermione realised with a start, Lestrange wouldn't make a mistake. She would win. Hermione couldn't allow that to happen. If Lestrange beat Molly, everyone around would be in danger, she herself as well. She had to intervene, even though Molly had said not to. Survive. And then, Lestrange eyes fell on her, just as Hermione started her wand movement. Her eyes went wide. Of course she recognised the wand movement. As she tried to side step Hermione's presumed killing curse, she was distracted for a moment to long. Hermione held her curse as she watched Lestrange stepping right into a curse of Molly's. Lestrange noticed, tried to get a shield up, but she was too late. The curse went through under her right arm and hit her right in the chest. She toppled over. Lestrange was gone. Voldemort screamed. Hermione had no time to be elated about the Weasley Matriarch's victory.

She turned around towards Voldemort and saw him raise his wand towards Molly. Hermione wanted to intervene, help her, but knew she had to stay out. It would be too risky. She had to survive. And then suddenly a large protego shield extended over the area. Hermione, like everyone else looked around confusedly for a few seconds, and then she saw him.

He had survived. He had survived. Somehow Harry had survived. Hermione felt as if she was coming back from being on autopilot. Harry had survived. He was still with her. And now Voldemort was mortal. Harry had survived and Voldemort was mortal. And now she would make sure it stayed that way.

* * *

Harry took a deep breath. It was over. It ended. Voldemort was gone and somehow, he was still alive. He and Hermione had survived. They had lost a lot, more than Harry could bear to think of at the moment, but they lived. They lived.

He turned around to look for Hermione in the crowd, and he didn't have to wait long. There she was, was all he could think before she impacted into him, closed her arms around him. "We did it." He whispered into her ear. "We did it."

The crowd around them was ever moving. But, to Harry's great pleasure, they didn't come to him. They were looking for friends, for family, to hug, to kiss, to congratulate. For a moment, Harry enjoyed the feeling of being just one of many. He knew it wouldn't last. He saw Luna come towards them and freed one arm from his hug with Hermione, to invite his other friend to join. Luna smiled and for once she didn't skip but instead ran towards them to join the hug. On the other side, Hermione opened the hug, for Neville, as Harry recognised when looking that way.

The four stood in a tight circle for a minute or so, before Luna said "They won't ignore you forever, Harry. Get some peace and quite, Neville and I will distract them."

Harry looked to Neville, who nodded his consent and then looked to Hermione, who looked to him with a mock glare. "Oh no, this time you won't leave me behind."

Harry smiled and nodded to her. They left the great hall together.

* * *

It was evening, exactly a week after the Battle of Hogwarts. Everyone who died defending the castle had been given a grave on the grounds. Tonks and Remus lay side by side, their tomb stone held the same truth as the one of Harry's parents. 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.' Not far from them was Ron's last place of rest. The Weasley family had decided on the inscription. 'To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.' A beautiful thought, as far as Harry was concerned. Hermione had helped them find it, with her knowledge of Muggle literature.

Now everyone was together once more. All the defenders of Hogwarts who had survived that night one week ago. It had been decided to have a feast to honour all the defenders, but especially those that had given their lives. Apart from the burials, the week had been used to quickly erect an obelisk, close to the lake, that held the names of every defender in the battle of Hogwarts. First they wanted to erect a statue of Harry, but Harry had flat out refused and put his foot down. Hermione had given Harry the idea with the obelisk, and the ministry, eager to do something in honour of the fighters, had been glad to take him up on that. Harry didn't know, but that single decision had brought him into the good books of a lot of people who had been on the fence about him. Harry knew he was supposed to say something during the feast, but he hadn't really been able to come up with something. Hermione had helped him in the end. She had written him a small speech and Harry smiled as he read it, thinking how well she knew him that she knew better what he wanted to say than he did himself. His smile increased, when Hermione told him that the idea for last line again was from a book. Maybe he should read a bit more Muggle literature, now that he had the time.

When the feast was finished, Harry stood up.

"My friends, defenders of Hogwarts. First let me thank each and everyone of you for your deeds. For your sacrifices. I know, you might expect a long speech. Maybe some kind of sentiment, that makes sense of all this. But I cannot offer you that. Albus Dumbledore would have been able to do that, no doubt. But I am far less great than many of those who gave their lives in this war." Harry paused, reaching for his glass.

"The war is over now. Now it is on us to make sure their memory is not sullied, that their deaths were not in vain. Together, we have to rebuild our world. Make it stronger. Better. So that what happened here one weak ago, can never happen again. That is our duty. To make sure they are victorious even in death." Harry raised his glass and most of the hall did the same. "Hail the Victorious Dead."

"Hail!" Everyone answered.

* * *

 _This ends what I dubbed the first part of this story. The second part, so the last four chapters, will deal with long term developments and span around fifteen years (therefore will be different in style, with only some situations dealt with in detail and others only summarised). While I was proofreading the first eight chapters I noticed a few minor inconsistencies with what I wrote in the later ones, which I want to get out. As I have to work again from tomorrow I might need an additional day to get up the next chapter. Sorry for that. Thank you for reading and I hope you will be back :)_


	9. Chapter 9

_Hi again :) There wasn't as much to change in this chapter as I thought, so this is the beginning of the second part. I do not own Harry Potter._

 **Chapter 9**

After a few weeks, some kind of normalcy started to slowly, very slowly return to Wizarding Britain. NEWTs where set for the mid of August, to give students more time to grieve for their loved ones and to do their studying. After all, the Carrow twins hadn't really helped the learning experience in Hogwarts. Those who wished to just repeat their seventh year without the stress of the Carrows staring over their shoulders and the constant threat of Voldemort were freely allowed back for September, as long as they stated their wishes until end of July.

Harry and Hermione were both awarded NEWTs that were based around their class performance in sixth year and their help in the war against Voldemort, as they couldn't be expected to repeat the whole seventh year in that short a time. However they were also given the opportunity to return to Hogwarts next year to do their NEWT year properly, should they wish.

Harry was awarded an O in Defence against the Dark Arts, an O in Charms, an O in Muggle studies, and a number of Es, amongst them Transfiguration, Potions and Warding (A test that could be taken even though Hogwarts didn't offer a separate course on it), after a short practical test where she showed the wards they had used during their year of hiding. He kept those NEWTs, telling Hermione in private that he loved Hogwarts, but he just couldn't go back to being a student there after everything that had happened.

Hermione was awarded Os in Defence, Charms, Transfiguration, Muggle studies and Warding. The better mark in warding was due to the fact that she took a short test on the theory as well. Additionally she got a number of Es mostly in the same subjects as Harry had. Before the war, Hermione would have gone back to Hogwarts to study and do her NEWTs 'properly', but now she had to think what was best for Harry and not what she wanted to do or thought proper. She decided that realistically, she wouldn't get any more possibilities (which in her new view meant capacities in which she could serve Harry) with her proper NEWTs than she would with these ones, so she kept them as well. Not to mention that she didn't really want to find out what Hogwarts would be like without Harry and….

Harry spent the summer mostly rekindling his relationship with Ginny, and it was a good decision for both of them. Hermione and Harry had decided that the true cause of Ron's death would remain between them for the time being, the official story being what Hermione had told the Weasleys that night. The way they had found Ron's and Marcus Flint's bodies no one had any reason to doubt Hermione's tale, not that they had had a lot of reasons before that. And so after the initial shock of Ron's dead had been behind them, Harry and Ginny managed to quickly build a relatively strong relationship. Hermione was sure it would survive Ginny going back to Hogwarts for her seventh year. In private, Ginny had told Hermione that while she wished Harry would go as well, she understood why he couldn't. Hermione was happy for both of them.

She herself had a lot of problems with Ron's death, since the war was over and she could think about it clearly again. She still thought it was her fault, even though she never told Harry. She didn't want to infringe on Harry's happiness, so she kept it to herself. Of course, both Harry and Ginny grieved as well, but for them it was different. After all, they hadn't killed him. And Hermione didn't want to trouble Harry with that. She wanted to grieve as well, but she didn't feel she had the right to do so. She had killed him. How could she now grieve for him? The only thing that kept Hermione from breaking down was that Harry would notice and Hermione desperately wanted him to enjoy his time with Ginny.

Harry took an Aurortraining Entry Test and unsurprisingly passed it quite well. However, to the surprise of most, he refused to start training immediately, citing that he had enough of hunting evil wizards for the time being. He wanted to have the opportunity, but said that he would not join for at least a year. Hermione thought that sounded weird, but it wasn't her place to question Harry's decisions. She knew if he wanted her advice, he would come to her.

Becoming an Auror was not the only offer Harry had. Susan Bones approached him for help in modernising the laws of Wizarding Britain. She and Neville both would take their NEWTs in August and would take up their families' seats on the Wizengamot afterwards. Susan wanted Harry to help, citing his own speech at the feast after the battle back to him. But Harry refused her as well, citing that he wasn't a politician.

Susan talked to Hermione as well, asking her a lot about how the Muggles approached modern society. Susan told Hermione that she thought not being a politician was a stupid excuse from Harry, but that she understood that he needed some time to leave Voldemort behind him. She made the same offer to Hermione that she had made to Harry, but Hermione wanted to be there for Harry. Not to mention that she was with Harry on this one. While she wanted to work in the Ministry eventually, still having Harry's order to make their world a better place in her mind, she felt like she needed some more time.

Sometimes Hermione thought about going to Australia to find her parents, but she knew she couldn't. She knew the only way for her to stop serving Harry for such a long time was if was either kidnapped and imprisoned, in a coma or dead. There was also the problem that she was unsure if she actually wanted to find them. She knew things couldn't be as they had been, now that she was Harry's slave. She was of course also afraid of how they would take what she had done to them, but much more she was afraid of how being a slave would affect her relationship with her parents.

However, luckily, as she later found, that decision was taken away from her late in July.

"Hermione, I wanted to speak to you about this for some time now, but I thought you would eventually bring it up." Harry said one evening, after they had had dinner at the Burrow. Harry had found that he had quite a bit of money now that he was an adult and could enter Gringotts freely, even before the rewards for defeating Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Harry had tried to refuse those, but the ministry and in fact, the people of Great Britain had been hard this time. Everyone who did what Harry had done would have gotten the same reward, and so Harry was not given much of a choice.

Harry had used some of his money to rent a beach house for the summer, large enough to comfortably house both him and Hermione, citing that he didn't want his older sister to live alone. Hermione gladly took him up on the offer, because it would mean she would be close to him and be able to serve him better. She also liked the idea of not being alone, though of course her own comfort was just a bonus. She was actually amazed how well Ginny took it. She even commented herself that she thought both that Harry and Hermione needed to be together and that they couldn't live at the Burrow 24/7.

That's why they were walking along the beach that evening, after apparating away from the Burrow to a secluded spot about a mile away from the house, when Harry started the conversation.

Hermione looked to him, curious what he could be talking about.

"When do you want to go and find your parents? I thought beginning of September, once Hogwarts started again would be a good time to go to Australia for a month or two, or however long it takes."

Hermione gaped like a fish for a few seconds. Then she looked down. "I can't get them. I can't leave your side for that long."

"I'm a big guy, Hermione." Harry said seriously.

"That's not what I mean." Hermione answered.

Harry looked to her. "It's this slave thing again, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded quietly. "But that's not everything. Everything has changed. I don't want to tell them I'm a slave now. They wouldn't understand..."

"Then we don't tell them. But I won't allow you to not get your parents back." Harry said rather forcefully and Hermione's head jerked towards him involuntarily at the edge in his voice. She could have hit herself. How could she talk so easily about not getting her parents back to Harry of all people. How bad that must have sounded to him.

With a shaky voice, Hermione said. "I... I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't have... I mean... I... I didn't think..." But Harry waved it away.

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, I already thought that it was one of those being a slave problems, so I have a solution. I'll want to go and find your parents. I'll leave it to you whether you want to come with me to be by my side and help me. I only forbid you from trying to talk me out of going myself." Harry said sweetly, before continuing his walk down the beach, leaving Hermione standing there once more in surprise.

Of course there was no decision to make. She had to help and serve Harry as good as she could. Usually, she would have objected to his going in the first place, but as she was forbidden from doing that, she had to go with him and help him. So arrangements were made and Ginny and the Weasley family were told about their plans. Hermione was still nervous about finding her parents again, Harry had been right, in the long run it would be better to see them again. Also as she no longer had a choice in the matter, she didn't think about it too much. Harry also told her that he would like to travel some more, if there was time left after the Grangers were found. He said he wanted to be back for the winter holidays, to spend time with Ginny when she was home, but he would have time until then. Hermione thought that idea to be formidable, and gladly joined Harry for that.

And so they spend the month of August preparing their travels.

* * *

Around the last week of August, a week before they would go to Australia, Hermione started feeling weird and not sleeping as well as she was used to. She assumed it was nervousness, and decided not to say anything, but by mid September it had become worse. She was hardly enjoying really anything about their travels and near constantly had some kind of bad feeling, that felt familiar, but she couldn't really put a finger on it. She thought that maybe it was due to not dealing with her guilt about Ron's death, and so she started talking to Harry about it.

Harry, of course, had noticed by then that something was wrong and was happy to try and help her, even though it was nearly as painful for him as it was for her. And indeed, talking about Ron's death helped her. Harry was especially adamant that she shouldn't feel guilty. He was uncharacteristically forceful in pointing out that if Ron had tried something different from the killing curse, she would be dead as well. That Ron hadn't been able to fight the slave curse, but the killing curse. Hermione, deep inside, had known that already, of course. But nonetheless it helped her that Harry pointed it out so resolutely. For a few days, Harry even put her under orders whenever she thought about being guilty of Ron's death to also think about what nightmare scenario's would have happened had she not won the fight against Ron. Hermione didn't really appreciate the scenarios she was forced to develop in her mind, but she had to confess that it kind of helped to put everything more in perspective. Harry would sometimes ask her about them and then would pointedly ask if she really thought Ron would have preferred that. There were a lot of tears and hugs during their talks, which happened nearly daily during the second half of September, but in the end Hermione felt somewhat better. Interestingly, being Harry's slave helped a little as well in that regard, as she felt kind of compelled to take on his opinions if he was so convinced and passionate about something. So it became increasingly hard for her to attribute all of the guilt to herself and increasingly easy to see that Voldemort had really been the guilty one. Of course, her own guilt didn't completely vanish, and there were still times when she was convinced she alone was to blame, but they became rarer and her feelings about Ron's death became more manageable. She wouldn't say she was over it, she wasn't sure that there was really such a thing as over it, but she felt more at peace with herself about it. This also allowed her to grieve for Ron, in the way she would have if he had been killed in another way during the war.

However, her bad feeling and sleeping problems increased at the same time. Hermione became worried. What was going on with her?

* * *

Harry was worried. As they went from September to October and it quickly grew hotter in Australia, he knew that something was wrong with Hermione. They had talked in depth about Ron's death, and after hearing every thought Hermione had about the topic, he was still sure she didn't have another chance to come out of it alive. And if she hadn't, probably the war would have gone the other way, Harry mused. The most powerful thought he had to offer was that Ron surely would have preferred that over being Voldemort's pawn for a long, long life. Harry knew this to be the truth, even though he missed his male best friend dearly. Finally, after many hours of talking Hermione seemed to slowly start seeing things his way. That helped both of them, as now they could grieve for Ron together.

However, Harry knew that Hermione had some other problem. He noticed that she was awake often during the night, even though she didn't notice him. He had, after all, his own set of bad memories to live through in nightmares, but he didn't suffer like she did during the day. It seemed so serious, that by the beginning of October even Ron seemed to be pushed to the back of her mind more and more. He would try to talk to her, but he got the feeling that she didn't really know herself what was going on. So he waited, determined to be there for her no matter what.

* * *

Hermione's state steadily worsened and she knew it. She constantly felt... pressured, unhappy, but she still didn't really understand why. The war was over, they were circling in on her parents, they were on holiday in Australia and she knew it wasn't about Ron. The feeling was... if she was forced to put it into words, she felt like she was failing. It was like the feeling she got previously when she thought she had failed a test, only that it was stronger and permanently there. But she didn't understand where it came from. Was it maybe Ron after all? She failed him as a friend, hadn't she? But she was almost certain that wasn't it. In fact, since her talks with Harry, thinking about Ron, about the memories they had made, rather than his death, actually started to make her feel... well good may be a bit too far, but at least it made her sad in a nice way, melancholic maybe? Of course, she also still thought often about his death. She grieved for him, she sometimes would cry out of guilt or grief or both, but it wasn't as bad as it used to be. However, the feeling that plagued her now was different.

During the nights, her nightmares about the chamber had lessened as well. They had been replaced by others. Weird dreams, that always seemed to end up with her failing Harry in some way and Harry leaving her. Their sixth year, when she failed to believe Harry about Draco Malfoy featured prominently. But Harry was still with her and from the look in his eyes she knew he wasn't going to leave her, so she didn't understand what her problem was.

And so October slowly crept on, while every day became a struggle to her. At the tenth of the month, they finally had found her parents. Well, not found them, but they knew exactly where they lived. It was another one hour bus journey before they would be there, so Harry and Hermione decided they would rest in a hotel in the little seaside village and visit Hermione's parents the next day. But truthfully Hermione didn't want her parents to see her the way she was now. So when they were walking along the beach once more, she brought it up with Harry.

"Harry,... I can't have my parents see me like this."

Harry looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

"I haven't slept more than three hours a night in the last week and a half. I'm a wreck and I'm not sure what is wrong with me. I'm sorry for not telling you earlier... I just... I didn't want to stop you from having fun during your holidays."

"I know you are having problems." Harry said to her surprise, she thought she had hidden it well after their talk with Ron. "I noticed that you were awake during the nights." He said simply, noticing the expression on her face.

Hermione looked at him and nodded. "Please, Harry, can we stay here for a while before going to my parents? I don't want to find them like this."

Harry smiled. "Of course, they are your parents after all. Can I help you in any way?"

"I don't know. That's the most frustrating thing. I don't know what my problem is. Maybe some peace and quiet while staying at this place might help me work through it."

Harry nodded. "Then that's what we'll do. Take as much time as you need."

Hermione gave him a thankful smile. For nearly fifteen minutes they walked along the beach in silence, each of them thinking their own thoughts. Then Hermione thought of something Harry had said that she found odd.

"How?"

"Hm?" Harry asked absentmindedly.

"How did you know I wasn't sleeping? Did I wake you up?" She asked worriedly. She never noticed Harry awake during nights when she was.

He pulled up an eyebrow. "I have memories to work through from the war. I don't have nightmares as regularly as I used to, but I wake up during nights."

That didn't help Hermione's worries at all. In fact, now Hermione felt awful. Had she been so busy with herself that she hadn't even noticed that Harry was having nightmares. Suddenly she was starting to feel ill and dizzy. Her thoughts were a mess. She had not noticed. Why? How? She hadn't helped Harry at all. She had only thought about herself. But... she... she had to... she was... she... Then nothing. She couldn't form any kind of thought anymore. She was a failure. Failure. She had failed Harry again. Hermione didn't notice when an expression of horror crept on her face. She had failed. She was a bad slave. FAILURE. Disrespectful! Making Master worry! Bad Slave! Failed Master!...

* * *

Harry knew that something was wrong when an expression of pure horror crept on Hermione's face. With the war still so close, he first looked around to make sure they were still alone, before he heard a 'thump' sound from behind him. Hermione had fallen to her knees, clutching her head in her hands. What was going on?

He crouched down before her, talking to her. "Hermione, what's wrong? Hermione, listen to me, everything is save, no one is here..." and more such things, but she didn't even seem to notice him. It seemed to get worse, as she was starting to slowly rock back and forth, still holding her head with both her hands. Harry also noticed tears starting to form in her eyes and freely run down her face.

Harry thought she was having some kind of episode, he had heard that war can have psychological consequences like this somewhere, and was just about to leave her to get an ambulance or something, when he noticed her mouth started moving as well. It was hard to understand her, she was moving her lips, more than she was whispering. Harry moved very close, carefully holding her in a position where he could see her lips and be close to her mouth. She didn't seem to mind, or for that matter notice.

Finally, she became a little louder and he could hear her. "Failure... Failed Master... Bad Slave... Disrespectful... Failure... Bad Slave... Makes Master do work... Causes Master worry... Failure... Failed him..." At that point Harry drew back and looked at his best friend in shock. Her eyes were empty as she stared at nothing in particular and gently started rocking again. The curse? Was that what was causing her all those problems?

Harry sat back and thought. He needed to help her, but he needed to be careful how to do it. Obviously this curse was more complex than they had known before. It kind of made sense, a curse forcing such a fundamental change on someone might take a while to fully take effect. They had ignored nearly everything about it since after the war, well at least he had, but he suspected that Hermione had as well, as good as she could. Was that coming back to bite them now?

'Bad slave, Failure'. Was that what Hermione thought of herself, maybe without even noticing? Harry tried to remember what Hermione had told him about the curse. She had to follow his orders, but it was more than that. Being his slave is the very core of her existence now, she once had said. And then she had called him Master and once she had told him that she should be on her knees. So not only does the curse make the victim a slave, it also gives them general ideas how a 'good slave' should be have. He had ordered Hermione not to do any of those things, thinking he would help her lead a normal live. 'Disrespectful' she had said. Had that been about that? 'Makes Master do work, Causes Master worry'... well he wouldn't stop either of those.

Harry took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Not an easy feat for him while Hermione was still rocking back and forth and crying and babbling about being a failure. Ok, so being a slave is in the core of her existence. So, in other words, while she doesn't necessarily like it, it is very important to her. And she has ideas on how she should behave to be good at being a slave. In a twisted way it made sense for her to feel bad about failing at something important to her, though Harry didn't like the implications. On the other hand it still sounded plenty crazy. But he needed to get her out of her current... episode, for lack of a better word. Then she could, maybe with his help, find out what exactly her problem was. And currently, Harry didn't have a better idea than that.

"Hermione, I'm here. Listen to me, I need you." he gulped, then continued. "You are my slave, after all, you have no right to rest like this when I have need of you." Harry observed Hermione closely and noticed some light return to her eyes as she stopped her rocking back and forth. "Listen to me, Hermione. For now, you will go back to thinking of me as master, and also calling me master from now on, if no one else can hear, and in my presence if you are not doing anything, and if no one else can see, you will be on your knees, like a proper slave, do you understand?"

* * *

Bad slave. Failed Master. Master doesn't even allow slave to call him Master. Master is ashamed of slave. Master... Master is talking to slave...

"... you have no right to rest like this when I have need of you." Oh god, Master has need of slave and slave let him wait. Wait... what is going on? Thought slowly returned to Hermione. She recognised Harry crouching in front of her with a worried face. Worrying Master. Bad Slave... stop it! Harry continued talking. "... go back to thinking of me as master, and also calling me master from now on, if no can hear, and in my presence if you are not doing anything, and if no one else can see, you will be on your knees, like a proper slave, do you understand?"

Proper slave. She was a proper slave? But she had failed Master? Hadn't she? But Master said she was a proper slave. Master had asked her a question. Slave... she had to answer.

"Yes, Master, I understand." She said. Hermione felt the fog surrounding her mind clearing up more.

"Hermione, are you with me again?" her Master asked.

"I think I'm getting better, Master. What are your orders?" Her Master looked at her confusedly.

"Orders?" he asked.

"You said before that you had need of me, Master?" Her Master looked at her surprised and then a little guilty. Hermione realised that there were no orders, Master had only tried to help her get out of whatever it was she had done to herself. Master was such a nice Master.

"I understand, Master. Thank you for helping me."

"Hermione, how do you feel?"

"Good, Master." Hermione said.

"No Hermione, tell me the truth. How do you feel? I don't want you to sink back into yourself." Harry thought for a while. "If you get ill or something, you won't be able to be a useful slave anymore, so tell me the truth. That's an order."

Hermione's eyes went wide, but she thought carefully, not wanting to disappoint her Master or take his orders lightly. How did she feel. She felt... she felt a tired. She hadn't slept very much lately. Other than that... she felt better than she had in two weeks. Master had said she was a proper slave. She was good at being Master's slave. Rationally, Hermione knew that she should hate that thought, but the truth is it made her feel good. Just as if she had gotten top of her year in Hogwarts. And then she realised what her Master had before. Being top of her year, reaching her goals, academic and otherwise had been important and so it had made her feel good. And now being Master's slave was the most important thing about her existence. She didn't like it, but she just knew it was the most important thing for her. And she had just tried to ignore it.

"Master... you understand, don't you?"

"What do you mean, Hermione?"

"We can't ignore that I'm your slave any more. It doesn't work that way."

"I was afraid of that, yes." Master answered. He sighed. "We should talk about everything. Maybe we'll stay here for a few days, alright?"

Hermione had wanted to do that anyway, so she agreed happily with her Master.

"Let's get you to the hotel, then. You need to rest some."

Hermione obediently got up and followed her Master to the hotel.

* * *

Harry was elated when Hermione didn't get up until shortly before lunch the next day. She looked better than she had in a week, though not yet fully recovered. After having some sandwiches for lunch, they started talking about the situation they found themselves in.

Hermione, it turned out, had not only slept but also done some thinking and searching within herself, to understand what she needed to do. She needed some kind of feeling that she was serving her Master well, she told him. And she needed to be respectful to her Master, at least to some degree. Harry explained that he was still uncomfortable with her kneeling in front of him and calling him Master, but he didn't order her not to this time.

Over the next few days, they developed a new dynamic. Hermione would sometimes call him Master or kneel or bow, but most of the time she would go with Harry and look right into his eyes. She said that she was being respectful by putting Harry's comfort first, while still showing him the respect he deserved at certain times. She likened it to Headmistress McGonagall, who both were on a first name basis with but they still called her headmistress when they were visiting her in her new office. Harry could follow that example.

Sometimes Hermione would ask Harry to let her do things that he was doing automatically. It was kind of weird for Harry to have Hermione make his bed for example, but he let her anyway. Without being under Harry's strict orders not to behave like a slave, Hermione seemed to become steadily better again, returning mostly to her usual self.

A week later, they finally went to her parents. It took a while, but after another week, they had forgiven Hermione for what she had done. Hermione told Harry that it went much better than she had thought, and thanked him for making her go. Harry just smiled and nodded. He had been telling the truth three months ago. There would have been no way in hell that he wouldn't have gotten Hermione's parents back. Hermione had asked him to keep her being his slave a secret for the moment, which Harry did. He wasn't especially keen on breaking those particular news to Dan Granger without having a fast get-away car waiting for him outside.

The Grangers would spend the rest of the winter in Australia and told Hermione they would return to their home in Britain in spring. The did invite Hermione and Harry to stay with them, but they declined. Hermione wanted to actually start some kind of life, and Harry, after what happened earlier during their travels, wanted to start researching for a way to free Hermione as soon as possible.

After a long and teary good bye with the Grangers, Harry and Hermione returned home to Britain in mid November.

* * *

Hermione felt back to her normal self, when they touched down on English ground. Well, as normal as she could hope for, given the circumstances. She wouldn't have to sneak around Harry when trying to serve him. Her Master had accepted her situation for now. She knew he would still try to find a way to free her, but she could live with that. It was just something he needed to do before he would be able to fully accept the situation as the new status quo.

Harry bought a new house, not wanting to live at Grimmauld Place. The house was spacious and comfortable, with an open type of architecture. Hermione assumed that after living with the Dursleys, imprisoned in cupboards and what else Harry might not have told her, the open style felt comfortable for him. The House was again on the coast, far away enough from the next Muggle village to be able to do magic, but not too far, so that they wouldn't totally lose contact.

Hermione put a ward up in the part of the house that would host magical items and the like. Muggle visitors would simply see a wall, where to them the house would end. It was slightly complicated, as the House needed to still seem to be its size inside, but with some tinkering, Hermione managed. Her Master had been so proud with her. Of course Hermione moved in with her Master. None of them wanted the other to be alone, and Hermione knew that living with Master would give her more opportunities to serve him.

She had to some degree stopped fighting the curse on that. She still didn't like being Harry's slave, but she had understood that she couldn't be torn into two the whole time. She needed to serve Harry and if she did it well, it caused her not a small degree satisfaction, much like good marks had done before. So she tried to carefully embrace that new side of hers without losing her true self. During their last month in Australia and first month back in England she had found a workable and in fact quite enjoyable middle way.

After a few weeks, winter holidays started. Hermione had decided (with Harry's agreement of course) to take a job in the Ministry after the holidays. It would be in the Office for Muggle Relations, for now. Not the most influential post, but for the type of work that she and Harry had in mind it would be a good first step. Harry had decided to wait until the summer, or maybe another year to start a job. Hermione assumed he wanted time to research the spell, but she didn't say anything. They had also met with Neville and Luna a few times. Luna would go on an expedition with her father in the new year and not be back until Summer. Neville, they had been happy to hear, had started a relationship with Hannah Abbot. The shy but kind and loyal Hufflepuff, whose marks in Herbology were only outdone by Neville's and maybe Hermione's, suited Neville well, Hermione thought.

It was during the winter holidays, when Hermione first recognised danger from another area. While Ginny had been nothing but understanding and accepting about Harry's efforts to help her, she seemed to be a bit less so now. Not that Harry noticed, oblivious boy that he was, but Hermione did notice. There was the odd question about how long she planned to stay in Harry's house, and this or that glance. Not that Hermione could fault Ginny, from the outside their situation had to look plenty weird. She calmed down somewhat when he got the opportunity to live with them for the second half of the holidays. Seeing their life first hand and the way Harry doted on her while Hermione was around, without paying any kind of the same special attention to her, Hermione would have expected Ginny to see that there was no danger coming from her.

The next week, Hermione started her job, while Harry vanished in the Black Library for most of the day. Hermione was happy that Harry understood that she didn't want to help him. He never asked and in fact supported her in getting the job at the ministry. It would just have been to much of a conflict with herself, on the one hand she had to obey her Master if he asked for her help, on the other hand the idea of helping anyone, even her Master, to steal her away from him sent uncomfortable shivers down her spine.

To her surprise, her lunch break was interrupted by none other than Daphne Greengrass. She asked her about certain Muggle appliances, especially asked whether she knew some that could be imitated with magic. When Hermione asked why, Daphne said she wanted to lift the ban on enchanting Muggle items, so that wizards could see how inventive Muggle were. She thought if a business could be opened, then it would raise the respect for Muggle culture amongst wizards and witches. Hermione was of course happy to help with that and asked her to come back the next day, after she had a bit of time to think. Daphne readily agreed, and they arranged to have lunch together the next day.

* * *

Over the next few months, Hermione could see Harry become increasingly frustrated with his search. He found two books with the spell, one of them only referring to it, the other at least explaining it in greater detail. However, the only new thing they learned out of that was the exact reason why Hermione had become Harry's slave instead of Lestrange's. Harry had been close enough and his magic more powerful than Lestrange's. Hermione once more thanked Merlin for the amount of dumb luck she had had that day, while at the same time feeling guilty that she had been the lucky one instead of Ron.

But none of the books held even a reference to a possible counter spell. Harry didn't give up though. After he had been through the Black Libraries, he petitioned Headmistress McGonagall for use of the Hogwarts Library, including the forbidden section. While the Headmistress was reluctant at first, Harry told her he was thinking about trying for a mastery in DADA, which was not actually a lie, as he told Hermione in private. The thought of Harry Potter as DADA teacher seemed to be too good to resist for the Headmistress and so she agreed. It had the advantage that Harry got to meet Ginny a few times before summer as well.

Meanwhile Hermione and Daphne had started to have lunch everyday apart from Wednesday, where Daphne had lunch with her family and Hermione had her half day and went home after the morning. Hermione had learned that Daphne planned to increase acceptance of Muggles to be able to get rid of the restrictions currently still in place on Muggleborns and Half-bloods. She also wanted to remove restrictions on other critical parts of the population, like Werewolves and Veela, but she wanted to start with the first two.

Hermione was slightly surprised at first, that a Slytherin of all people would work so hard to make the vision Harry had laid out in his short speech come true. The Slytherin in question was not at all happy with her when she mentioned that. "I have had that idea long before Potter phrased it into that pathetic thing he called a speech." Daphne spat. "Only because he said it, doesn't mean everyone is taking it from him. I have been friends with Tracey Davis, a Half-blood, my entire life and it still makes me sick when I remember how she was treated in her own house. So don't come to me with Potter's 'vision', understand?" Hermione nodded, stunned to silence.

She had been afraid that she could not meet Daphne anymore, after all what she said had been very disrespectful against Hermione's Master, and Hermione could never tolerate that, but she learned fast that that wasn't generally the case. Daphne did respect Harry a great deal, it was just this particular thing that she resented. So she and Daphne started working together to get to a place where Daphne could implement her plans in form of first laws. She had taken up her family's seat in the Wizengamot, though she would only hold it until her little brother of now three years came of age, maybe a bit longer if her father decides to remain head of the family for a while after her brother comes of age. Hermione told Harry about everything, and Harry encouraged her to help Daphne if she believed it was the right way to go.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading :) I promised you a Daphne in the second part, and here she is :-p_


	10. Chapter 10

_Hi and welcome back :) I do not own Harry Potter._

 **Chapter 10**

It took them several months to come up with a plan they both thought was valid. Summer holidays had come and gone, and by now even Harry understood that Ginny had a problem with his and Hermione's living situation. Hermione offered to move out, but Harry was having none of it. He went as far as to strictly forbid her from it, for fear that her wish to serve him would still make her do it. He told her in no uncertain terms that he needed her with him and so Hermione wasn't left a choice other than to stay living with Harry. Not that it was a huge burden on her.

Hermione and Daphne decided to get the Weasley twins to help them, their inventiveness and passion for tinkering together with their knack for unconformity would make them the ideal people put some of their ideas in practise. Hermione also spent some time at her parents home, but she never could stay for longer than two or maybe three days. Her need to go back to her Master's side was too great to ignore for longer than that. She knew in that she had changed in the last few months, but she couldn't really seem to get herself to care. She liked feeling satisfied with herself, and while some of that came from her job and her new project with Daphne, not to mention the friendship she thought was slowly developing between them, she knew that she also felt happy and satisfied with herself because she accepted serving Harry as a major part of her life.

It wasn't even that much. As her Master insisted on cooking himself, she usually only got to prepare the kitchen for him and do the dishes afterwards, though sometimes he would do that himself as well. She cleaned up the living room regularly, though she suspected her Master left it a little untidy on purpose, to give her something to do, as it stopped her from fighting him for the right to cook. Sometimes she would read him out of a book in the evening, or help him with some research unrelated to the slave curse. Other than that, she served him by doing her job and through working with Daphne, because she knew that her and Daphne's goals where what he wanted as well.

There were of course downsides as well. Hermione knew she couldn't pursue a romantic relationship. Not that she didn't have the time to do so, but it would cause too much conflict with her obligations to her Master for her to fall in love with someone. As the only man she had truly thought of that way was dead by her hand, Hermione didn't necessarily see that as a bad thing. However, it also meant that her dream of having children of her own would not be fulfilled. Or her parents dream of grand children, that she knew they had. Sometimes, lying awake in her bed, she thought of those things, and tears started to form in her eyes. She was not unhappy with her life, but sometimes she felt lonely. It is not easy being the only one with a certain... problem. Harry knew, of course, but he couldn't understand. Not fully. Ron in his last moments had been the only one who could have, but he wasn't there.

* * *

"When will you start searching for a job and building up a new life?" Ginny asked without warning one evening after dinner. Harry had asked Hermione to leave the house to him and Ginny and she had promptly gotten an invitation to the Greengrass family for dinner. So it was just him and her. For the last half year they had had problems, some but by far not all of them due to his living with Hermione.

"I am not finished with my research yet." Harry said. It was true. He had finished in Hogwarts, but there was one more option for him to find something. It would take some time to get into there, but the library of the Department of Mysteries could be accessed by others, he knew that much. He would have to ask Hermione's help. He understood that Daphne's little sister Astoria had recently started as some kind of secretary in the Department, so maybe she could shed some light on how to get access. Sadly, Hogwarts had taken him longer than he thought, so he could kind of get were Ginny's impatience was coming from.

"You said that for half a year. What are you researching. You can't still be on the fence about that DADA Mastery. Harry, if something takes you this long to decide for, then maybe it's just not the thing you want to do?"

Harry didn't like lying to Ginny. But what else could he do? Telling her about Hermione was not really an option to his mind, he wanted to spare Hermione that kind of embarrassment, just as he wanted to spare Ginny the knowledge he had about her brother.

"Please, Ginny, I know and understand that you are impatient. But, please give me a bit more time." He begged with her.

Ginny sighed and looked at him seriously, her eyes fixing on his. "Tell me honestly, this has something to do with Hermione, doesn't it?"

Harry gulped and looked at her shocked, but he couldn't bring himself to lie to her so he just said nothing.

Ginny nodded. "What is it with her? Some remainder from the war? Is that why you don't want her to move out either? If she has a problem, why doesn't she at least help you?"

"It's... complicated." Harry said, cringing when he head his own words. "She needs my help, but she cannot help herself. I know it sounds weird, but please, Ginny, believe me."

"I do." Ginny answered, which in all honesty was slightly surprising to Harry. She had grown out of her quick temper a lot over the last year. "But please, can you just tell me what it is, so I can truly understand? I promise I will be there for both of you, no matter what, just please, don't have secrets from me?"

Harry's heart broke as he continued to look into Ginny's brown eyes. His decision had been made not to tell her but it was then that he understood that their relationship would end. Slowly he answered. "I'm sorry, Ginny, but I can't tell you. It's... it's not my secret to tell."

Ginny looked back to him sadly, but nodded understanding. "Harry, I love you, I truly do. But I cannot be second best after Hermione Granger, for whom you don't even have romantic feelings. I understand that she is basically your sister, but there's the thing, she isn't really. I'm so sorry, Harry. I know you probably have the best, noble reasons. I just can't do it. I wish so much I could." She leaned over the table and gave him a kiss on the lips, before stroking over them with her thumb. Tears welled up in her eyes, just like in his own, Harry noticed.

"I'm sorry, Ginny. I really wanted this to work."

As tears ran down her cheek, Ginny smiled "I know. Don't be sorry. We both must do what is right for us. You... you must stand by your sister. If we wouldn't be in this situation, I would be proud on you for that." She smiled another teary smile. "Good bye, Harry Potter. We had a nice time."

* * *

Daphne was confused when she couldn't find Hermione the day after she had dinner with her family. She started to be worried, when she couldn't find her three days in a row. On the fourth day, one of her co-workers walked up to her, when Daphne was on her way to her office. "Ms. Granger is out. She called in this morning that she had to take her holidays early. Some kind of family problem."

Daphne felt her eyes widen in surprise. She would have thought that Hermione would at least send her some kind of message. Or was it so serious. Daphne started to worry again, as she walked back to her own place of work. She looked up as she heard a soft 'hoot' coming from her desk. She had an owl waiting for her. She quickly took the letter and, recognising Hermione's handwriting, she tore it open and began to read quickly.

 _Dear Daphne,_

 _I can't come to work right now due to a private matter of great importance. I'm sorry, I'm not sure when I will be back. I might have to find a new place to live as well after this. You'll have to work without me for a while. I'm really sorry._

 _Hermione_

That didn't sound very good at all. Daphne always had the feeling that Hermione and Potter were closer than she was with Astoria, and that was quite the feat. Why would he throw her out of his home while she was having problems with her family. Or was this about Potter. Daphne had taken more of a liking to Hermione than she had expected to. In fact, ever since Tracey's family had fled to America when the war heated up, Hermione had been the only one Daphne saw as a friend. She still had contact with Tracey, of course, through letters and she had even visited her once, but it wasn't the same.

It was the evening of the next day, when Daphne apparated to the shore, about where Hermione's home should be. Some strong control she had over her emotions, Daphne thought, held out a full day before becoming to worried. She wasn't even sure Hermione saw her as a friend. She, after all, had Potter and the Weasley family. Still, Daphne approached the house. It was a nice house. She knew it was Potter's so she begrudgingly had to give him some style points for that. She was just about to knock, when she heard voices from inside.

"Please, Harry, just let me move out and stop that crusade of yours, then you can get back together with Ginny." Hermione shouted, tears evident in her voice.

Potter's voice just as loud. "We've been over this Hermione, stop blaming yourself for Ginny breaking up with me. She just wouldn't have been the type to accept the place you have in my heart, even if she had known about everything. Just stop blaming yourself. I made a decision," Daphne cringed when she heard Potter's voice grew colder, "I thought you were not supposed to question those." Daphne was confused. Was Potter out of his mind? She had known Hermione for less than a year, and she already knew that she would not like being talked to like that.

But then, to Daphne's shock she heard Hermione reply in a much calmer voice, that still carried enough for Daphne to hear. "I know I'm not, Master." Master? _Master?_ What was going on here. Hermione continued. "But..."

Potter interrupted her. "No, no buts Hermione. You will stay living here, stop objecting or asking for me to throw you out. Tomorrow you will go back to work. I know how much you like it there, I don't want you to lose your job because you think you have to take care of me. I will be fine. Clear?"

Daphne gulped as she waited for Hermione's answer. Hermione stayed silent for a while, then she Daphne could hear "Yes, Master."

Instead of knocking like she had wanted to, Daphne quickly apparated away, a million questions on her mind.

* * *

The next day, Daphne didn't wait for her lunch break to go visit Hermione's office. She knocked and heard her friends voice from inside. "Come in."

Daphne opened the door and Hermione said. "Daphne, it's you. Nice to see you. Sorry that I couldn't make the last few meetings." Hermione smiled, but Daphne noticed that her eyes weren't involved in the smile. Daphne turned around to put a silencing charm on the door. Hermione seemed mildly surprised, but didn't comment. It wasn't unusual for Daphne to do this when she wanted to discuss plans that couldn't come out.

"Hermione, are you alright?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, sorry for worrying you."

Daphne shook her head violently. "No, Hermione, I mean it. Are you alright? Do you need to move out? You can live with me and my family for a while." Daphne quickly offered.

Hermione eyes fell down to her table. "Thank you, but I can't. I have to stay with Harry."

"Did you two have a fight?" Daphne pressed on.

"What? No, of course not." Hermione said without looking up. "How do you get that idea."

Daphne reached over the table to grab Hermione's hand with her own. "Hermione, I know we haven't been friends for long, and maybe you are not yet at the point where you call me your friend." Hermione looked up with wide eyes, as if to try to contradict her and Daphne smiled. "Or maybe you are. But you can trust me. If Potter is giving you any problems, you can tell me."

Hermione's eyes darkened, and Daphne knew she had said the wrong thing. "Harry isn't giving me any problems." She insisted.

"Then why did you think you have to find a new place to live."

"I... I..." Daphne knew she was close. Hermione eyes had started to tear up and her hand was slightly shaking inside Daphne's.

Hermione seemed to collect herself. "Thank you, Daphne, but I can't talk about that."

"Hermione..."

"No, just forgot that I told you about it. I have to stay with Harry. Please leave it at that." Hermione seemed to become angry.

"Have to, but not want to?"

Hermione looked at her, Daphne could recognise the shock in her face for a brief moment, before she caught herself. "It doesn't mater."

"Because he said you had to stay with him?"

"How would you know what he did or didn't say?"

Daphne looked down guiltily for a moment, but then her resolve hardened and she looked back up into Hermione's eyes. "I was worried, so I came by your place yesterday and heard you shouting. I heard how Potter treated you. He basically ordered you to stay living with him and come to work today."

Hermione's eyes grew wide and she started shaking harder than before. "Hermione, what is going on between the two of you?"

"You have to leave now. Nothing is going on between us. You misheard."

"I didn't mishear, Hermione."

"Then you misunderstood."

"I didn't."

"You did. Harry treats me as well as I could wish for."

But Hermione was still shaking. Daphne looked at her for a long time. Then she quietly asked "Don't you mean 'Master'?"

That got her the desired effect of Hermione breaking down. Not that she enjoyed that, but she knew it was necessary to find out how to help her. What she hadn't expected was that Hermione would after few sobs suddenly fall to the floor, hitting her head hard on the desk, before starting to shake violently.

Daphne ran around the desk and kneeled down beside her friend, cursing herself for not being more careful. But of course, she knew everything best. She had to get her friend to break down. "Hermione, Hermione, what is wrong?" she tried and was admittedly surprised when Hermione's eyes focused on her before she started babbling.

"I failed him. I failed him again. I am useless. Useless..."

"You are not useless, Hermione..."

"I am, I am... I failed Harry again... I failed him... He is unhappy because of me... I made him unhappy... It's my fault... mine... betrayed his secrets... my fault... all my fault... bad... failure... useless"

Hermione became incoherent. Daphne needed to decide what to do. She couldn't help Hermione. It seemed she was on some kind of guilt trip, for something that had happened to Potter. Judging from what she overheard yesterday, she would have thought something about Ginny Weasley. But that would only explain the first part of Hermione's string of expressions. What was that about betraying his secrets? Had Potter had a secret and Hermione had told Weasley and that's why they broke up? No, that doesn't make sense. Then Daphne jerked as she finally understood. It was about herself. That's why she broke down after Daphne mentioned the word Master. She wasn't supposed to know. She knew a secret of Potter and she wasn't supposed to know. Her eyes grew wide. This was her fault.

Daphne became panicked. What could she do? She drew her wand and cast a calming charm on Hermione. Her babbling seemed to lessen a bit so Daphne tried a stronger one. It had some effect on her shaking. Maybe if she could be calmed down enough, Daphne could make her sleep and bring her... somewhere. St Mungo's? Daphne wasn't sure. This didn't seem to be a physical problem to her. The only other idea she could come up with was Potter, and as she didn't understand the situation yet, so she wasn't too keen on that either. Finally she decided to bring her to her home under sleeping charms, and go talk to Potter. Her sister had the day off, so she could care for Hermione for a while.

* * *

Thirty minutes later she stood in front of the same door she hadn't knocked on yesterday. This time however, she did knock. It took a while, but finally Potter opened. He seemed surprised and said "Ms. Greengrass, Good Morning. I'm sorry, Hermione is at work today."

"She isn't" Daphne answered calmly.

Potter's eyes widened a little, before narrowing dangerously. "What do you mean?" There was an unspoken threat in his voice, and Daphne couldn't fully suppress a sliver of fear starting up inside her.

"She... broke down this morning." Daphne thought herself a good judge of people but this time, that wasn't needed. A blind man could have seen the worry in Potter's eyes. "She is asleep at my family's home."

Potter looked at her. "What do you mean, broke down?"

"She fell to the floor and started shaking, as if she had a seizure, then she started babbling. Something about failing you, causing you unhappiness, betraying you..."

With a jerk Potter jumped up. That had happened before, Daphne concluded. "Bring me to her." It was not a command, though it was phrased as one. He was actually begging with her. The mighty Harry Potter, begging. "Please. I need to tell her that everything is alright. She won't calm down before."

"So this happened before?" At the urgency in Potter's eyes, Daphne shook her head. "Sit down. She woke up from the sleeping charm I put on her, I admit, probably due to a nightmare, but my sister gave her some dreamless sleep potion. She will be fine for a few hours."

Potter looked at her for a long time, then reluctantly, as it seemed, sat down. "Now, tell me what's wrong with her?"

Potter looked up. "No. Sorry, that is her secret."

"Funny, when she thought I knew what it was, she said it was yours." Daphne said.

"What do you mean?" Potter asked.

Daphne ignored the question for now. She wanted to know more about Potter before trusting him with anything about Hermione. Though until now, he said all the right things. "I know you are combing top to bottom through every library you can get your hands on. You are not researching for DADA. You are looking for something. There is something wrong with her and you are trying to fix it, aren't you?"

Potter didn't move, but his silence told her all she needed to know. "You spend so much time on it that your girlfriend even broke up with you?"

He raised his eyebrows. "How do you know?"

Daphne ignored the question ones more. "That's why Hermione feels responsible?"

He looked at her for a long time, then he nodded.

"So tell me what is wrong with her?"

"No, maybe if she agrees, and she wants you to know, she will tell you. But I won't."

Daphne sighed. "Potter, I suspect we are on the same side here. She is the only friend I found ever since the Davis family fled the country. I don't want to lose her. I'll help you with your research or whatever. I just want to know so I can help her."

Potter looked at her for a long time. Then he shook his head.

"Sorry, but I don't trust you."

"And I don't trust you, so I can't let you to her before you tell me what is wrong with her?"

Potter's eyes widened once more. He seemed to think. As if to buy himself more time, he asked "You seem to know a lot. How is that?"

Daphne sighed. "I was worried for her and came here yesterday. I heard you shout."

"That's why you don't trust me with her?" Potter concluded.

Daphne nodded. "Would you?"

"What did you hear?"

"Enough." Daphne said stubbornly. Potter narrowed his eyes again, but Daphne didn't cave. "Tell me what's wrong with her."

Potter looked back to her impassively. Ten seconds... twenty seconds... Daphne grew impatient. She knew she needed Potter to help Hermione. And she nearly had him. She just hoped the next bit of information would not cause the same reaction as it had in her friend. "I heard her call you 'Master'."

To her relieve a look of distaste crossed Potter's face at the word. He sighed. "During the war... near the end... Hermione was hit with a very... complicated and weird curse. It... it made her my slave."

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "Yours?"

"Since the end of the war we found out that it enslaves the victim to the most powerful magical user in proximity. That was me."

"Ok, what do you mean when you say she is your slave? I mean, she seems normal enough to me when she is not, you know..."

"Breaking down or calling me her Master?"

"Yes." Daphne confirmed.

"Well, she has to obey my orders. As you probably heard yesterday." Daphne remembered her surprise when Hermione had accepted the way Potter had talked to her. "Even if she doesn't want to. Her personality and everything was mostly left untouched by the curse. As far as I can understand from her behaviour and could find out in books, the spell just infuses the slavery as addition into the core of the victims existence. They know they are a slave and they can't do anything about it, even if they might not like it. It's hard to completely understand. I assume Hermione is the only one who could, but I am not sure that she actually does."

"Try to explain what you know." Daphne said calmly.

"She has to obey orders. Even if she isn't ordered around, she still has a need to serve me and keep me happy. She puts me before anything else in her life. She also has some ideas of how she should behave around me or treat me."

"Calling you Master for example." Daphne suggested.

"For example. She also has to kneel in my presence to show her subservience. If she doesn't at least from time to time, she feels she is being disrespectful. If that continues she starts feeling bad. Thinking of herself as a bad slave and so on. We tried, ye me ordering her to call me Harry and behave like she always had around me. It led to about the same situation she is in now."

Daphne nodded. She could kind of understand why Potter hadn't wanted to tell. If that got out, no one would hire Hermione, her being basically nothing more but Potter's puppet in their eyes. From a political point of view it was also a problem, Daphne thought idly. The brightest Muggleborn of her generation reduced to a slave of at least a Half-blood. Daphne shuddered at the thought of what ideas this might give some of the pureblood hardliners in the Wizengamot. From that point of view, she also understood why Potter and probably Hermione agreed to tell no one about the spell or its effects.

"So yesterday..." Daphne started.

"I tried to get her to stop trying to sacrifice herself for me. I have to do this, I have to find a way to free her. You understand? I knew it would put a strain on my relationship with Ginny, but it was my decision. She tried for days to convince me to kick her out and then explain everything to Ginny and forget about her. She was becoming more and more hysteric. I didn't know how to calm her down. I thought if she went to work and could meet with you, she would feel better. That's why I put my foot down yesterday evening."

"Well, I guess the breakdown was more my fault than yours, Potter. I was worried after what I heard. I pestered her. She refused to tell me anything, so I let it slip that I heard her call you Master. I never imagined that her reaction to knowing her secret, which she sees as yours, would be that."

Potter looked at her for a long time. "Daphne, this can't come out."

"I won't say a word to anyone. Hermione is my friend. Trust me. I wouldn't hurt her. And if that is not enough for you, all my political goals would become much more difficult to reach if this became public knowledge."

Potter stood up again. "Can you bring me to her now?"

"To do what? She will be asleep for a few hours."

"I just want to be there for her."

Daphne looked at him. "Alright, in a moment. What do you want to tell her once she wakes up."

"Tell her that it wasn't her fault, I guess. And so on." Potter scratched the back of his head.

Daphne looked at him with a frown. "Because that worked so well over the last three days?"

Potter looked at her sullenly. "Do you have a better idea?"

"Yes. You want her to feel better. Tell her that you need her help. That she can't move out because it would make it harder for her to serve you. That she is a good slave."

Potter looked at her in disgust. "I know you don't like it, me neither, but it's what she needs to hear right now, if I understood your explanation correctly."

Potter stood there for more than a minute, looking down at Daphne who was feeling quite small just sitting there, but who also couldn't really summon the strength to get up and in his face. Finally he sighed. "Ok, let's try it your way. But only as a temporary solution."

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed reading :) I assume most of you saw a conflict about Ginny coming, seeing that it was hinted at last chapter. The 11th chapter will be the last full chapter while the 12th will be shorter and will close the story._


	11. Chapter 11

_Hi :) And welcome back to the second to last chapter. I'll be traveling again tomorrow, so I am not quite certain when the last one will be up, but it will be sometime this weekend. I do not own Harry Potter._

 **Chapter 11**

Harry had to give it to Daphne Greengrass. She was a good friend for Hermione. Together they managed to right the situation with her. Hermione got too caught up in her guilt over what happened between him and Ginny. It turned out, Daphne's suggestions had been indeed exactly what was needed to break the kind of vicious circle that Hermione had been spiralling down.

Harry blamed himself. He hadn't been careful after his break up with Ginny. Hermione had seen him on the couch crying, and he had told her more than he had meant to. Her reaction really had been foreseeable.

Once Hermione's 'slave-side' had been able to accept that the break up wasn't Hermione's fault, actual Hermione managed to get control back over her emotions, that had been all over the place before. Things went back to normal after a month or so. Well... normal except that Harry wasn't with Ginny anymore and Hermione and he were invited to the Weasleys less regularly than they used to.

On the other hand, Daphne started inviting Hermione to dinner with her family more regularly, and as she now knew the situation, she invited Harry as well, knowing it would be easier for her friend to enjoy herself if she could remain close to her 'Master'.

* * *

Their plans were starting to bear fruit. Daphne had introduced a bill to allow certain enchanted Muggle objects to be sold in shops, after the Weasley twins had successful tests and demonstrations of the appliances. The law went through without a lot of opposition, even the part that offered more funds to the Office of Muggle Relations and the Office against the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts (to oversee the invention and production of such items).

In another law, Daphne had actually taken up a suggestion of Harry's. From now on, Muggleborn witches and wizards and their families would have to be informed of Hogwarts and the Magical world at least half a year before they would start, to give them sufficient time to decide and then prepare. Hermione smiled at the antics of her two friends. Daphne pretended stubbornly not to like Harry, while Harry remained cordial but distanced with Daphne. But Hermione knew better. They were on their way to become friends.

She knew she had to thank both of them for her newfound happiness in her life. Daphne now knew, and Harry had allowed Hermione to talk to Daphne about everything she wanted to share with her. She hadn't told her about Ron, yet, but being able to talk to her was helpful. Sometimes Harry just wouldn't understand what some of his orders did to her, he always had the best intentions but sometimes he overshot the target when trying to help her. Then she could go to Daphne and she would talk to Harry. Harry trusted Daphne's judgement more than Hermione's in these situations, probably because her mind wasn't clouded by a slave spell, Hermione mused.

Hermione only wished Harry would stop researching this stupid spell. Then they would finally be able to settle down and start to make their peace with the situation. Unfortunately, that part even Daphne didn't understand and she was vehemently supporting Harry's decision. She and Astoria had helped Harry to access the Department of Mysteries library and so Hermione had no hope that Harry would stop in the foreseeable future. It was a big library.

* * *

Over the next two years, Astoria Greengrass observed Harry Potter daily working in the Department of Mysteries. His knowledge must be quite an asset by now, but she suspected that's not what he was out for. He was researching about obscure dark spells, mostly. She knew, because one evening she had looked up the books he had taken out to read.

She knew Daphne was fully aware of what Harry Potter was trying to do and that she supported it, but she didn't tell Astoria. That alone told her that it was important.

To be fair, there was one thing Astoria kept from everyone else as well, including Daphne. She was not at all a secretary in the department. She was training to become an unspeakable. She had had the best NEWTs in her year and in fact, the best ones in several years, though she suspected Granger not really taking hers aided her in that. Of course, no one knew, because the Department had changed her marks before they were sent out. They had approached her as soon as her marks were set by the testing commission.

She had to keep it a secret from her family for only a little while longer. Once she was a full unspeakable, her work in the Department would be put under a full secrecy charm that worked similar to the fidelius. People would only remember that she was an unspeakable if she or the chief unspeakable told them. Until then, telling her family was not allowed and grounds for firing her, because secrecy is very important to the Department. While she did trust her family with her life, the Department did not, as a matter of course.

Though her family had enough to be proud of at the moment anyway. Daphne was doing great things on the Wizengamot, together with Neville Longbottom and Susan Bones and working more in the shadows, Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger. She was the reason Harry Potter was spending all his free time in the Department of Mysteries, of that, Astoria was sure. She respected him for that. He antagonised many people who asked for his political help. On the other hand, she also thought that there had to be a point when it was enough. He was still very popular, but he wouldn't remain popular forever. He could single-handedly change the political course of Wizarding Britain, improve the lives of thousands and thousands of witches and wizards, especially those that were disadvantaged at the moment, but he didn't, because of a futile search for something that would help a single witch.

Really, Astoria didn't know what to think of him. She was awed and inspired by his devotion, that much was sure. But she also had liked the self-sacrificing side of him, that she had seen glimpses of during and before the war, when she first came to Hogwarts.

And when Astoria wasn't sure of something, she always did one thing. She observed.

* * *

Daphne was angry. It had been three years since she had found out about Hermione's situation and by now, she understood where her best friend was coming from when she said she wanted to settle down and accept it. It must be devastating for her to see Harry leave for the Department of Mysteries everyday hoping and fearing at the same time that he might find something, but being disappointed and relieved in the evening, because it had been another day of nothing.

Her problem was that Harry couldn't accept it. No matter how hard she tried to make her other best friend see it, he just refused to listen in that regard. No matter how much she tried to get his attention to other things he could do, he refused. And Daphne felt herself getting angry with him. This had long stopped being about Hermione. This was about him. That's what Daphne had a problem with.

She did acknowledge that not everything was great. Daphne knew that Hermione would not ever try to find romantic love and that she had dreamed of children but wouldn't have them. Daphne had suggested that Muggle had ways to have children without the romance involved, but Hermione refused. She didn't want children if she couldn't put them first like she should do and Daphne understood what she meant. Any child would notice if it was only second most important to his mother, even if the mother loved it properly.

Not to mention the little things. Having to serve Harry... well having to was more becoming a wanting to with Hermione. She had just gotten used to it by now, Daphne assumed. Anyway, she did acknowledge all these things and she understood that they were good reasons to try and find something. She just respected Hermione's wish to stop the search. But Harry couldn't.

* * *

Astoria knew that there was tension between Harry Potter and her sister. She had first been surprised when they had become friends, but not any longer. By now, she was wondering how they hadn't been friends for seven years while in Hogwarts. They were made to be friends, in Astoria's not so humble opinion.

And Astoria also noticed something else. At some point, during her observation, she had developed more than just a... scientific interest in her object of study. She wasn't sure what it was. The things Daphne told her about Harry, maybe. After all, for Daphne to tell so many good things about someone had to mean something, Astoria knew. Or the way he bantered with her when he and Hermione came over for family dinner? They had come twice a week for nearly a year now and Astoria had found herself looking forward to them more and more. But it wasn't that. Really, it was the thing only she really knew, only she could observe here in the department. None of them could really appreciate what the search down here in the libraries took out of him. And the devotion to his friend that made him continue his quest even if no one wanted him to, including said friend. She had found it in that... the self-sacrifice she had admired when she was younger and more naïve.

By now, obviously, she knew what he was looking for. And she knew where he could find it. She hoped it would finally get him to do the things he needed to do. Tomorrow she would be able to help him. Tomorrow she would be a full unspeakable and then she could reveal herself to him and give him what he was looking for. Well not exactly what he was looking for, but the only thing there was.

* * *

Spring 2003, Harry thought idly. How long did he want to keep this up. By now Daphne was pretty angry at him and he knew Hermione would be, if she could. He needed to stop this at some point. No one wanted him to continue looking. To be honest, he wasn't even sure he wanted to myself.

Harry had had these kind of thoughts for quite some time now. Just, whenever he thought of not going back into the DoM in the morning, he felt like he was letting down Hermione. And he just couldn't bear that feeling. So he went back everyday to find something, that with all probability, wasn't there.

It wasn't like there was nothing else to do. Both Daphne and Hermione had frequently asked for his help in this endeavour or another. Of course he understood that they had done so to stop him from his search, but making the wizarding world a better place, even through politics? That sounded quite enticing at this point. That he refused to help was another reason why Daphne was not happy with him at the moment.

By now, with all the knowledge he had picked up during the last years, he could also take up a Mastery quite fast. Maybe become a teacher. He had liked teaching the DA. Or maybe he could join the Aurors now. It had been a while since he had had a nice exchange of spellfire, and a small part of him was missing those. But he just couldn't stop his search. He couldn't let Hermione down.

 _BANG!_

Harry was shocked out of his musings, as his table shook slightly. He looked up, to see Astoria Greengrass standing opposite of him and noticed that she seemed to have dropped quite a thick and old book on the table. Harry was confused that she was here, but not unhappy to be able to take a look at her. She was breathtakingly beautiful. More so, in his opinion, than her sister was, even though many probably wouldn't agree with him. She was just a little bit smaller than Daphne. Her body was more athletic than Daphne's, and while he would never dream of describing Daphne as insecure, Astoria's stance always seemed to broadcast an amount of confidence that Harry felt was contagious, without taking on the expression of slight aloofness, that Daphne oftentimes wore.

But the real difference between the two were their eyes. Daphne's ice blue had been legendary, even during Harry's time in school. He hadn't heard from the younger years, but he assumed much the same had been true for Astoria's eyes. But while Daphne's eyes still were the same legendary colour, Astoria's had changed. Harry had heard the story over dinner once. He had asked Daphne first, but she said that it was Astoria's story to tell. And so Harry asked her the next time over Dinner.

During his seventh year, Astoria's fifth, she had guarded a group of Slytherin first and second years from sixth and seventh year junior death eaters. The children got away and Astoria had managed to take out three of the group of five, before she was hit by a dark blinding curse. She had taken out one more despite being unable to see, before the fight was broken up by Snape, who took one look at her eyes before bringing her to the hospital wing. She had nearly lost her eyes that night. Luckily, Madam Pomfrey had seen the curse before. She managed to fully restore one of her eyes, the right, that still had the same colour as Daphne's. But when she could start working on the other one, it had been too late for that. While she did still manage to restore full vision, Astoria's left eye mostly remained discoloured, black. However in some parts, little swirls, the colour was restored, though not to the original blue. The blood that the curse had put in her eyes had somewhat changed the colour, and so her left eye seemed like a dark pit, in which small storms of blue, red and sometimes purple always fought for dominance.

Her eyes were what made her prettier to Harry than Daphne was, though he wasn't quite sure if it was the unique colouring, or if it was what it stood for, or maybe even the fact that she didn't seem insecure about her uncommon looks.

A somewhat mocking smile formed on her face, and Harry noticed that he had been lost in her eyes a bit too long to feel comfortable with. "Astoria, hi. What are you doing here?"

"Evening Potter, I understand you and Hermione are coming for family dinner tonight?" She asked. For some reason she insisted on calling him Potter, even though Harry had tried many times to get her to stop. She usually just would look at him seriously and say something like 'somebody has to remind you who of you are' and would just continue calling him Potter. At some point, Harry gave up trying to change her mind.

Truthfully, he enjoyed talking to her quite a bit more than he thought he should. If he didn't have Hermione to care for, he might even have asked her out. But he was afraid of another repetition of what happened with Ginny. Astoria could have a bit of a temper sometime, just like Ginny had. On the other hand, the two were very different. Yes, Harry had compared Astoria to his ex-girlfriend more often than he cared to admit to himself.

"Yes, I believe so. Well, once Daphne and Hermione remember what time it is and I can actually get them to stop working and go over to yours, I guess."

Astoria grinned. "Poor you, always having to get between my sister and her work. I'm amazed you are still walking, Potter."

"I am quite good at dodging curses, after all." This actually awarded him a small chuckle from Astoria.

"Well, see to it that you get them there early today, or they will miss the big announcement I have to make." Astoria said, suddenly sounding serious.

Harry looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "I will."

Astoria smiled at him. Harry liked it when she smiled at him, it made him feel content, at ease. But she wasn't really supposed to be here. "Astoria, not that I'm not grateful to see you, but I thought only unspeakables were allowed into the library?"

Astoria nodded, but continued to smile. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to help you, Potter."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said, I want to help you. But I want something in return as well."

Harry found that weird. Until now, Astoria had always given him advice freely. Like, how he could manage to get Daphne over their latest squabble, or how to support this or that political endeavour, without spending too much of his own time on it. Harry knew she was quite clever. He had been told that her marks had suffered due to the war, and so she wasn't able to get a job other than secretary, but Harry knew she was clever. In fact, though he couldn't base this assumption on a lot of first hand experience, from what little he had seen and what he had been told by Daphne, he assumed Astoria could give Daphne and Hermione a run for their money.

"Help me with what, Astoria?"

Astoria took on mock hurt expression. "Really, Potter, don't try to play me. I'm much cleverer than you are, so you will lose anyway. I know what you are looking for here."

Harry was shocked. How had she known? Daphne had promised him time and time again that she had told no one, not even Astoria. Wait, maybe she was trying to trick him.

She smiled victoriously and as if she could read his thoughts she said "I can prove it. Here in this book." she pointed on the book she had dropped on the desk. "On page forty-two is what you are looking for."

Harry looked at her for a long moment but she remained silent and just gave him an encouraging smile and nod, pushing the book a little closer to his side of the table. Harry, like in trance, reached out and took it. It was an old book. The pages nearly broke when they were moved. Carefully he went through the pages until he read the number 42. The heading of the double page read 'Freeing victims of power based enslavement spells'.

Harry started to read. 'As discussed previously, power based enslavement spells are the hardest ones to fight. Some of that family, such is 'vis tibi servienda est' are notorious for being irresistible. Therefore, anyone fighting against mages so dark that they employ such matters, should know the spells listed in the following pages. But one should also be aware of their weaknesses.'

Harry stopped reading and looked back up to Astoria. The smile was gone from her face and she looked back to him with a serious expression.

"How?" he simply asked.

Astoria breathed in deeply. "I have observed you here for a while now. It was quite easy to retrace your research and find out what you were looking for." She smiled at him encouragingly. "Daphne and Hermione are lucky to have a friend with your devotion. Don't let my sister tell you any different."

Harry's heart jumped at her unexpected warm words. But he was still confused. "But Astoria, you can get into big trouble for even setting foot in here. Retracing my research?"

"You have enough to worry about already, Potter. Don't worry about me." She took another deep breath. "The truth is, I have not been completely honest with everyone. That's what I want to announce today at dinner." She looked down. "Harry. As of 11 am today, I'm an unspeakable. I was in training nearly for the last three years, and while in training, it has to be an absolute secret. You are the first one to know."

Harry felt his mouth fall open. Then he stood up and walked around the table, there he stopped, uncertain what exactly he was going to do. In a spur of the moment decision, he pulled the woman into a hug. "That's great, Astoria. Congratulations." Joy felt his heart when Astoria returned the hug, lying her head onto his shoulder.

They parted, and Astoria smiled at him. "Does that explain how I was able to track your research without committing a series of crimes?"

Harry nodded. Then Astoria got more serious again. "Sit down, we have to talk."

Harry did as told. "Harry, I understand why you aren't stopping your search. I do. I have seen you here every day. Believe me, I understand more than Daphne and Hermione can right now. They haven't seen either the desperation in your eyes, or the amount of blood you lose due to paper cuts on a long day."

Harry was amazed at how soft and at the same time passionate her voice sounded but also confused where this is going. "I'm sorry, Harry, but you won't be able to help her in the way you hope for." She pointed back at the book.

Harry started reading again. The description of the counter spell was confusing to him but after two tries he thought he got the gist of it. "So it can free the person from slavery, but it can't restore the priorities to what they were previously to being hit by the curse. It basically deletes the slavery from the core of their priorities, but it doesn't replace it. Is that right?"

Astoria nodded sadly. "Yes. After the counter spell, the victim is left with nothing to really live for. They will become depressive. Some of the accounts later in the book warn of suicide attempts."

"But couldn't we find a spell that replaces the slavery with something else after removing it?" Harry asked.

"That would work," Astoria said, "but do you really want to decide what should be the most important thing in someone's life? It wouldn't really be any different from being your slave. Hermione would find most important what you think she should find most important. Right now, she seems happy with her life, most of the time. I realise there will be some things I can't imagine that are difficult for her, but do you really want to risk her current happiness for an attempt like that?"

Harry looked down on the pages. He knew she was right. "Maybe… maybe there is something else…" Harry looked up again and Astoria looked back to him with pity as she shook her head.

"No, Harry, there isn't anything. As an unspeakable, even during training, I have more powerful ways to search for information and more leeway as to what kind of information I request, even about magic as dark as this." She shook her head again. "This is the only book we know about… in the world. I found out about it two months ago, it took me another month to locate a copy and then one more to bring it here. I got it yesterday. I'm sorry Harry, there is nothing else."

Harry looked at her and saw the truth in her eyes. She wasn't saying it just to get him to stop looking. How… how much time had she spent helping him from the shadows? He wondered about it, while he felt tears in his eyes. He wasn't sure whether they were tears of relieve or of sadness, or maybe both? His search had come to an end now, he knew it. He couldn't help Hermione, but at least he hadn't let her down either. The tears started running down his cheeks and he was only dimly aware that Astoria had sat down beside him, taking his hand into her own, slowly rubbing his back with the other.

He did however hear her voice. "Shh… Everything will be alright. You did everything you can and more. She is lucky to have you." And other such nothings was all she said, but to Harry it felt more soothing than he could say.

After a while, Harry composed himself and wiped his tears off with his sleeve. He turned around to Astoria, who released his hand, but smiled back at him. "Thank you, Astoria. I can't tell you how much you helped me."

"You don't have to, Potter, I know you would have been lost without me." She answered, grinning mockingly.

Harry chuckled, but his voice remained serious when he picked up from somewhere at the beginning of their conversation "Whatever it is you want in return, just tell me."

Astoria continued to smile as she stood up. "Be punctual for dinner. Dress nicely. And then, after dinner, come talk to me and ask me out for a date."

With that she left a once more gaping Harry at his table.

* * *

Hermione was happy with her life. Ever since Harry had stopped his search, she felt content. There were still things she would wish she could do but couldn't, but she had made her peace with that. She was also happy for Harry. Astoria was good for him

The two had been going out for a bit more than three and a half years now, starting the evening after Astoria's big announcement about joining the unspeakables. Harry had apologised to Hermione the next day and told her about his findings. He told her that he couldn't help her and that he would stop searching now. Hermione hadn't seen him as free as that for at least a year. She knew that Astoria had helped him somehow, had gotten him to stop searching, but neither he nor Astoria talked about it.

Harry had gone on to study for masteries in DADA and Ritualism, banking on the knowledge he had collected during his research to help Hermione. He had passed DADA two years ago and Ritualism just last month. He had managed to get one of the elected Wizengamot seats and was now the leading reformer amongst the elected members. Daphne was his counter part for the family seats. Hermione had stopped working for the Muggle Relations office and had become Daphne's personal assistant. The two of them still came up with most of the plans and political manoeuvres to get what they wanted, while Harry usually just lend his political muscle as the man-who-conquered. That gave him enough free time to pursue his studies. Sometimes he would come up with an idea of his own, though Hermione often suspected a certain amount of Astoria behind Harry's ideas.

Sometimes Hermione thought about what Ron would do now, if he wasn't… dead. He would have become an Auror, wouldn't he? Or maybe he would have made it as a quidditch keeper? Maybe he would have decided to do something Hermione couldn't even imagine right now. In those moments, she still felt guilt well up in her for killing him, for taking all that away from him…. But the times when she thought like that had become rarer, the guilt she felt more like a shadow of its former self. She had good friends who wouldn't let her become like that for long. Harry, Daphne and lately Astoria were a great help to her.

They still were invited to the Weasleys from time to time, but it had become slightly awkward when Ginny had started going out with Oliver Wood, and even more so later, when Harry had started going out with Astoria. The Greengrasses were not the Weasleys' favourite people, though they did their best to hide that sentiment whenever Harry and Hermione came over. Still, contact to the family remained. Fred and George still viewed Harry as their partner and included him in all major business decisions. Ginny also regularly sent them tickets to her Quidditch Games, which always was a nice change of pace for all of them. She even included tickets for Astoria, once her and Harry's relationship had become public knowledge. By now, Ginny and Oliver were married.

Starting next year, Harry would take up a part time teaching job in Hogwarts, mostly grading papers for charms and transfigurations while studying for his mastery in both subjects. Masteries in DADA, Charms, Transfiguration and one other subject would automatically grant a Mastery in Duelling, which was what Harry was out for. Hermione believed he eventually wanted to take up a full time position at Hogwarts and found a proper Duelling Club. Harry had become quite enamoured with Sport Duelling lately.

But today was Christmas 2006, and as always in the last three years, Harry and Hermione had Christmas dinner in Greengrass manor. Hermione was slightly surprised when instead of Lord Greengrass' usual Christmas speech, it was Harry who stood up to talk.

"Dear friends, I wish you all a merry Christmas. I know, you are expecting the usual Christmas speech given by our host, and he will still deliver it, but he allowed me to say just a few words before.

In the last years I have come to appreciate how great my friends are even more than before. I wouldn't know what I would do without them. Without their advice, their help, their encouragement. I would truly be lost. That's why I want to take this time to thank them. Thank you, Hermione and Daphne." Harry raised his glass to them and took a sip, as did people around the table. Hermione noticed that Astoria looked at him just as surprised as she felt. Astoria hadn't known about this? That was odd.

"However, it was just the more surprising to me when I found out lately that there is another person I do not want to live without anymore. Her counsel, her presence, her support and simply her smile." Harry's eyes searched Astoria's and found them. The two smiled at each other, before Harry continued. "Astoria has been with me for the last three and a half years and if there is one thing I learned during this time, it is that I would be a fool to delay this any longer." He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a delicate but beautiful ring. Hermione felt a smile form on her face. "Astoria, will you marry me?"

Instead of answering, Astoria jumped up and kissed him possessively.

* * *

Three years later, Lilly-Sophie Potter and Andrew Ronald Potter were born shortly after Harry had finished his Masteries. Astoria continued working for the unspeakables, while Harry stopped part time teaching with the understanding that he would be the next in line for the full time DADA position. It would be a few years until the current Professor would retire and Harry wanted to use the time to support Daphne and Hermione in their politics, while caring for the twins.

Another three years after that, Daphne ran for the office of Minister of Magic, and won with the help of Harry's endorsement. She immediately hired Hermione as her undersecretary. The three were commonly referred to as the second golden trio in the political news, due to their successes in beating back discrimination in most forms. For the next five years they would continue to do so even more successfully. The name was a bit awkward to Hermione, because she had to think of Ron whenever she read it. It made her feel uncomfortable, to say the least, that it sounded like they had simply replaced him. But she got over that eventually.

Sadly, Daphne only held the office for one five year term, before she lost re-election. Her opponent, a pureblood hardliner had started rumours about Daphne and Hermione being more than just friends, and while Wizarding Britain was becoming more modern, they weren't that modern yet. As Daphne flat out refused to fire Hermione, it painted a strong enough picture for Daphne to lose by a very narrow margin at the end of five years.

In the same year, Lord Andrew Greengrass retired from his position as head of the Greengrass family, and Daphne's and Astoria's little brother Tobias took over the family business. He continued Daphne's politics in the Wizengamot, but decided to fill the seat himself. It would look weird for the head of house to not be available in the political arena. Andrew could only get away with it previously, because he had filled the seat for many years before handing it over to Daphne.

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed it :) Sorry to those of you who where hoping Harry would find something to free Hermione._


	12. Chapter 12

_Hi, and welcome back for the last chapter :) I was done with checking the chapter, so I thought I put it on now before I have to travel around again. I hope you have fun with it. I do surprisingly enough still not own anything about Harry Potter or his world. I just like playing around in it._

* * *

 **Chapter 12**

It was at the evening of Daphne's last session on the Wizengamot, that she, Harry and Astoria sat together in the living room of Potter's Abode, as they had dubbed the House they had been living in for over a decade now. Hermione had gone to bed early, because she would take an entry test for her Mastery in Spell Research the next day. Daphne sat in the comfortable armchair, her favourite, while Harry and Astoria occupied the couch, Astoria lying lazily with her head on Harry's lap.

Harry rose his glass to Daphne. "To the best politician I know."

Daphne smiled. "I'm not done yet, you know?"

"Gonna run for one of the public seats?" Harry asked, having expected something like this.

But Daphne shook her head. "I won't run myself again. At least not right away. I'll support others from the sidelines. Less of a hassle."

Harry looked at her calmly. "Anyone specific in mind?"

Daphne looked to Astoria with an evil grin. "Astoria and I agree that it is time for what people have been expecting for long now. Minister Potter has such a nice ring to it."

Harry shook his head. "No way, Daphne. I'm not a politician."

"I know, but I am. You can still teach at Hogwarts. One five year term is all we need to finish what I started. You don't want to leave it unfinished, do you?"

Harry looked to Astoria. "You are in on this?"

Astoria just nodded. "Of course, with Daphne's and Hermione's help, who could really stand against you, the defeater of the last Dark Lord. You will win. And Daphne is right. It's only one term. It will be about that long at least until you can start teaching DADA anyway. It would be awkward to start before the twins are finished there. I think you should do it Harry."

Harry looked at both of them for a long time. "I'll think about it."

Astoria smiled and rose, giving him a soft kiss. "That's my cue. I'm going to go look for the children." She and Daphne shared an ominous glance, before Astoria left the room.

Harry looked to Daphne who silently stared back to him. Finally he asked "So, what is it?"

Daphne continued to look to him. "What do you mean?"

"That glance you shared with your sister just now. You have something else planned. I know my wife. If she leaves the room, it means she leaves some kind of decision completely to me. So it is up to you to tell me what is going on."

Daphne sighed. "I have thought about this for a long time Harry. I want to ask you for a favour. A huge one."

Harry nodded to her to continue.

"Hermione. You and I both know that she is missing someone. Despite all the friendship the three of us can give her. She needs someone who can completely understand her."

Harry's eyes widened. "Surely you are not suggesting…"

Daphne interrupted him. "I want to be there for her. And now I'm no longer needed for anything else, I can be."

Harry stood up instinctively, trying to get his point across. "Daphne, do I really have to spell out to you in how many ways this is a stupid idea?"

Daphne raised as well. "I know. I know it is, ok. But Hermione is my best friend. I can be there for her like not even you can, Harry. And other than she was, I am not interested in marriage or kids. I won't lose anything by doing this. You know that, Harry. I won't lose anything in the way she has had to. I can still be with you, her, Astoria and my family. That's all I ever need. But I can really be there for my best friend if I do this."

It wasn't her words so much as her voice and her way of talking that made Harry aware of just how serious she was and how important this was to her. Even after over fifteen years of friendship, the moments when Daphne would let herself seem vulnerable, let alone begging for something, Harry could still count with only one hand. Right now her usual aloofness and unyielding calmness, that on rare occasions was unsettling even to Harry, was nowhere to be seen.

"Daphne…"

"Yes, I know. It will be hard on you Harry. I know it will. This is the hardest thing I ever, ever asked of you. Please, Harry. For Hermione. Please."

Harry watched as Daphne slowly took out her wand. "Daphne, please, think about this again."

"What is there to think about. I can do exactly what I want to do, even if I do this now. I want to help you become Minister of Magic. I don't think that will be a problem. After that, I want to help better our world. I don't think that will be a problem either. You have let Hermione do it for years. The difference is, I will be able to be there for Hermione in a way no one else is able to. What is there to think about?"

"Daphne…" But Daphne pointed her wand to herself.

"Stop me if you want. Stop me, knowing that this is what I decide for myself and what you would deny Hermione in doing so. You are proficient with the disarming spell, stop me if you want."

Harry pulled out his wand and raised it. "You have talked to Astoria about this?"

"Yes, she understands, but she wants to leave the decision to you."

"Let us talk about this calmly, Daphne."

But Daphne shook her head. "If you really want to deny Hermione the one thing she wishes for more than anything else - something I willingly want to give her - then disarm me now."

Harry raised his wand, but the spell wouldn't cross his lips. He knew Hermione. She would never say anything. And really, what could she have said about this? But she was desperately wishing for someone who could completely understand her. Daphne wanted to give that to her. Could he really… could he really stop her?

Daphne smiled at him. "I knew you wouldn't be able to."

"Daphne, are you sure about this?"

"As sure as I have been about anything in my life." Daphne said confidently. "I've thought about this for a long time."

Harry sighed and put his wand back into his robes. Honestly, it wasn't like there was anything he could do as Daphne seemed like she had already decided. He couldn't watch out for her casting a spell on herself every minute of the day. He knew Daphne. The way she was acting she was determined enough to do it one way or the other, but it was still important to her to have his consent. This way, at least she wouldn't feel like she did it against his wishes.

Daphne smiled at him and nodded. "Thank you, Harry." she said with a tear running down her cheek. "Thank you so much."

"You get to explain this to Hermione tomorrow after her test, just so that we are clear on that."

Daphne snorted and lost her composure for a moment as she chuckled lightly. "I hardly think you will have problems to get me to do that either way in just a few moments."

Harry looked back to her as she pointed her wand back to her self. Looking him into the eyes with a smile on her face, she spoke the words. Harry had never seen the spell cast before. It was a black beam with a golden Aura around it, that started surrounding Daphne as the spell impacted. The Aura surrounded her for a few seconds, before it faded. When it was fully gone, Daphne seemed to look around disoriented for a moment, before falling to her knees in front of Harry, bowing her head.

"Master…"

* * *

It was nearly five years later, that Hermione Granger stood in front of the grave of Ronald Weasley on the grounds of Hogwarts. Tomorrow would be the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts but Hermione always came on the day before that. The last day when Ron had still been free. Harry usually accompanied her, but always left her alone with Ron for a while.

All in all, she was happy with her life, most of the time. She had great friends and indeed family, as she thought of Harry's children as her nieces and nephews and they of her as their Aunty, ever since they had been little. Harry had been great with her and she would never be able to thank him enough for the amount of care and love he always showed her. After living in the same house for such a long time now, they were truly brother and sister, even though he still was her Master first of all. She was eternally grateful to Astoria, more than she could ever convey to Harry's wife, for her understanding of the situation.

She had even managed to tell her parents about everything a few years back. They had been shocked at first, then hurt that she hadn't told them earlier, then angry with Harry, with Astoria, with the wizarding world, but eventually, they had gotten over it. She still knew they were sad that they wouldn't be getting any grand children, but they eventually understood Hermione's situation as good as they could and finally Hermione had really gotten her parents back.

Most of all though, Hermione had Daphne. Her Master's other slave. Oh, she had wanted to be so angry when she found out. She had been so shocked. She had wanted to yell at her Master, though obviously that hadn't been an option. She had wanted to yell at Daphne and Astoria. But she hadn't been able to. Daphne had given Hermione the one thing she had wanted ever since she had become her Master's slave. Someone to understand fully what she was. And Daphne had given up everything for their friendship.

Well, it helped that being Master Harry's slaves wasn't all that bad. She and Daphne more often commandeered their Master around than he did them, Hermione thought with a chuckle. He had indeed been elected Minister of Magic in a land-slide victory earlier this year and already Daphne was trying to talk him into a second term. Of course, he was strictly against it, but he and Daphne kind of had the understanding that he would forbid her from trying if he really wanted her to stop trying to convince him of something, which he had not yet done. Hermione mused that she and Daphne could probably talk a second term out of him, though they would probably have to enlist Astoria to help. Hermione knew that her Master eventually wanted to teach at Hogwarts and she would never try to talk him out of something he wanted and neither would Daphne, of course. But both of them knew that Harry also wanted Wizarding Britain to become a better place, and so they tried to make him see that he could still start teaching after a few terms as Minister.

Daphne would be Harry's Undersecretary, something Harry had announced before the election and that people had happily accepted. She now lived in a small beach house built at the back of Potter's Abode, close enough to be able to serve her Master properly, but without living in the house. Hermione and Daphne often worked there on future political plans until late in the night. Both of them were devoted to their Master, of course, but their friendship had become a sisterhood of its own. Hermione smiled. She had been quite lucky, all in all.

Only sometimes she thought about these things and then she thought of Ron Weasley. She still missed him and doubted it would ever really fully go away. She wasn't sure she wanted it to go away. Ron had been a part of them, she didn't really want to forget that. But he had deserved all the luck Hermione had had as well. Sometimes Hermione thought it was unfair that she would go on living happily, while she had killed Ron. If only she had captured him. If only she hadn't lost her wand to him. If only she had noticed something before. The counter spell Harry had found hadn't been very helpful for her, because Harry was kind and good to her, but they could have used it to free Ron from Voldemort. He could have lived a happy life, just as she did. If only she had not killed him. What happened with Ron was the thing she regretted most in her life. Not becoming her Master's slave. Ron. Hermione felt tears run down her cheek as she slowly sunk to her knees and touched the earth on the grave with her fingers. Ron had deserved all that luck, he had managed not to kill her, he had been stronger, he had deserved it.

Hermione heard something behind her and felt a hand on her shoulder. Daphne was there, as she always was. Hermione allowed a few more tears to fall. But inside, she knew Ron would have wanted her to make the most out of her life. To live as happily as she could. She picked a tear off of her cheek and let it fall to onto the grave. Then she turned to Daphne, who was holding this years wreath out to her. Hermione smiled at her through the tear stains on her face before she put down the wreath. It read 'Corruptio Optimi Pessima' - corruption of the best is the worst.

She looked on for a second, then she said "I'll see you next year." before getting up and turning around, walking away from the graveside side by side with her best friend.

"You alright?" Daphne asked her.

Hermione thought about the question and smiled. Her live wasn't perfect, but most of the time it was pretty good. "Yes. Yes I am."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it :) Especially thanks to those who helped me out with interesting thoughts and critique. In the later chapters I changed a few things thanks to your input and I think the result was improved compared to what it was before._

 _Anyway, I hope you enjoyed yourself :) I definitely had fun writing this and also putting it up here._

 _Until next time, Mc._


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